The Chronicles of the Sinister
by Dilemma Obscure
Summary: Two friends go to Hogwarts school in the time before Harry Potter (when they are 13 he is 7). At Hogwarts school they delve deep into the past of one of them, our main character Kora Rastrick, whose criminal father won't die down to have again.
1. The Chronicles of the Sinister

Chapter One:Girl in the Valley

The sun had already ignited across the street and through my window when I woke up. Little bright rays were poking sternly at my eyes – I shifted so that they were facing my back and looked at my clock. It read eight thirty-nine.

I lay still for a while, watching the shadows on the wall disappear as gradually the little rays of light flew up and flooded the whole room in warmth and sunshine. Once again was the village dipped into another morning, the start of yet another drowsy, hot day.

It was my cue to get up and get going like I normally did most mornings, but I just buried myself deeper in bed, brushing away the straying brown strands of hair from where they had resided over my face.

__

Tap, tap, tap. The familiar sound of a hard surface tapping on glass. I turned over to gaze at the window, where the massive form of my friend was perched.

She raised her wings – her feathers flashed a rusty red in the sunlight – and she scrabbled at the window sill with her three-inch copper talons, giving a muffled whistle. It was muffled because of the limp, dead body of a shrew that she had, clamped proudly in her hooked raptor's beak.

Torque is a red tailed hawk, resident over our spot of land and most of the valley from above. Our friendship goes back a long way, when I was eight and we had found her lying injured in our Asphodel garden. Since the moment we had healed her, she'd made it her normal routine to visit us every week, sometimes accompanying us to places like Diagon Alley, or on bushwalks up the hills surrounding the valley that our village was in.

That is, those days Pop had been available most of the time.

I swung my legs over the side of my mattress and slid off the bed – I'm not exactly on the big side. I hurried to the window and pushed the glass up. Almost immediately, Torque hopped in and deposited the dead shrew onto the carpet. I made a mental note to clean it up later and gave Torque a reasonable pat of gratitude.

"For me? Thanks, big girl. You gonna join me for breakfast?" She hopped down onto the floor and began footing her way to the door like she owned the place. I stretched, yawning, before following her out into the hallway. On the way to the staircase, I stopped by Pop's room and peeked in. "Pop? Are you there?"

Nothing. The bed was still neatly made, with the corners of the sheets tucked under the mattress in the way I usually did them. I sighed – whatever they were doing in the Ministry of Magic, it had been keeping my grandfather busy for two weeks now.

He's a very respectable man, my Pop. God knows why they even let him in the Ministry, after all the trouble he had caused in the past…

Have you heard of the Rastricks? You should have. Most everybody who's wizard kind knows the history, legend, and curse of this unholy family, dating back from 577 BC. Not that it's a nice thing to know, but it's us who've got to live with it.

Basically, almost every generation of my family have been there and done that. Meaning, we've been one of the worst wizarding families for ages and ages. All those before me had been power-hungry, ruthless, killing off both Muggle-kind and wizard kind, or whoever dared to get in their way. You should say that we were a troupe of Dark wizards.

My Pop had been one. Nowadays he's nothing like what he had been before, whatever he had been like. My Pop had repented at an early age, one of the few Rastricks who ever turned away from evil once they had started.

He and I are the only Rastricks left in the world. Or we would've…

My father. Richard Rastrick, formerly known as Richie to his schoolmates and peers. Just another one of the many evil wizards that came from my line of the family, except many reckon that he's got to be the most cunning, maybe even the most powerful of all the Rastricks.

Once a Rastrick, always a Rastrick. That's what they used to say in the valley. People have put bets on whether I was going to turn out as bad as he was. The story is that I had been born to an anonymous mother far off from Britain, while a war was raging against Richard and his followers. Richard, broken and bleeding from the battle, had taken the duty of delivering me to Pop himself in London. He hadn't stayed long, just long enough to pass on a message as he handed me over to his shocked, pale-faced dad…

__

"Kora…she's a beauty, isn't she?…Take care of my baby for me…I'll be back…"

Before that moment, my Pop had not seen his son for over ten years. After that, whenever he would be telling me that story, he would exclaim how he was torn between two decisions: kill Richard on the spot and risk hurting me, or accept me and let Richard go on his way.

From then on, reports have been filed all over the world about battles, destruction, death, victims…all under the control of my father. Many had thought that he was going to join forces with the Dark Lord Voldemort, before he succumbed to Harry Potter four years ago at Godrick's Hollow, but he never did. I guess my father had wanted to keep it in the family…

People are convinced that Richard had literally meant his last words to my Pop – "_I'll be back_" – and that one day he would he would track me down and take me. We would pledge terror on the world, and it would help greatly if I did happen to turn out as bad as he was.

My Pop is a wonderful man. He's trying hard to make amends to what is left of our family, and although he was gone at the moment I knew that he was still going hard at it, whatever he was doing. I did miss him – I had been left literally home alone with nobody to talk to except a bird. After all, you _would_ expect the daughter of a deranged mad wizard to be socially isolated from everybody else's kids, even if everyone did like her grandfather and practically worshipped him in the Ministry. It was no wonder we lived so secluded from everybody else.

I put out some cold meat on the kitchen table, leaving it under the mercy of Torque's vicious beak. Then I made some eggs for myself and wondered when Pop was coming home. Moreover, I wondered how much money I had left from the thirty-five Galleons Pop had left on my bureau the day he had left to go to work two weeks ago. After I had worked it out, I looked at Torque. It was time to go out again, and it was essential that I took someone with me in order for myself not to lose my head in the crowd…all the staring…the whispers…the talking as soon as I was too far off to hear…it pained me so much, I was almost ashamed of being who I was…nevertheless…

"Well, Torque…fancy a walk to Diagon Alley?"


	2. Day Out

Chapter Two:Day Out

The ride to Diagon Alley was familiar, but it was still bumpy and aggravating. Torque squawked in annoyance as I held her feathered body close to myself, so not to crash into the walls as we rushed through the fire places. Traveling by the Floo network had never been one of my favourite ways to get to Diagon Alley, but it was the quickest, and I felt obliged to be frisk that day.

Finally, my feet hit solid ground. Thankful that I had the good luck of landing the right way up this time, I stepped out of the fireplace and into the tiny space that was the Floo transport checkpoint. A downy old wizard sitting at a table nodded without looking up from his game of wizard's chess, and I strode out into the warmth that was my destination.

Diagon Alley was packed today. Every square inch down the long, winding street seemed to be occupied by at least ten kids, and all of them seemed to be around my age. I was perplexed to see that they all seemed to be carrying around the same sorts of packages, like they had been shopping for similarly the same things…some of them were wearing black robes with a strange emblem on the front showing a spectacle of animals…

It took me a while to realize that, of course, these must be the new students going into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the thousand-year-old school we have in Britain. Pop – and Richard – had gone there as kids. It was my heart's every wish that Pop didn't send me there as well…every Rastrick in the world who had gone to that school had turned out bad, even if they had first gone into Gryffindor House or some innocent house like that. Maybe if it had been Slytherin it would have all made sense. It was crazy of me to dread Hogwarts in that way – it wasn't as if I was going to turn evil in any way _any_way...

I decided to ignore them. Leave them to their shopping and their happy chattering.

Diagon Alley is one of our more popular wizarding places to shop or walk around. It's only one of many other Alleys in the area; they are all connected in more ways than one. Some entrances are obvious and out in the open while others are hidden from everyday view, and you had to search long and hard in order to find them. Mind you, those were usually the Alleys that the average witch and wizard would never set foot into unless under extreme caution. These were the kinds that I liked to venture around in, just to see what they had going on inside that was so unlawfully unhidden from the rest.

Diagon Alley has to be the most decent around. Surrounding the gray, indigo and brown cobblestones are a manner of shops and stalls, each selling products, foodstuffs and other goods that I find quite interesting no matter how many times I had seen them. _Eeylops Owl_ _Emporium_ sold owls of many colours, shapes and sizes. On passing them, Torque gave a low hiss from my shoulder. It is a known fact that hungry owls sometimes liked to prey on other birds while they were nesting peacefully in a tree.

Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions sold…well, robes for all occasions. Pop preferred this place to anywhere else to supply him with dress robes for dinners at the Ministry, work robes for when his became too tattered…anything down to bathroom robes. Madame Malkin knew Pop well and was a dear friend of his, but of course she had something against me like all the others.

Flourish and Blotts sold books, all kinds. Spell books, potion books, books about magical creatures, books about politics and books about history. You could even find books about Muggles, the non-magical kind who live outside our world whilst sharing it nevertheless.

Cauldrons, stacked on top of each other, filled one shop from floor to ceiling. The apothecary forbade all by showing the roiling bodies of iguanas and frogs in jars in the display window, and emitting such a smell that one thought that someone might as well have died while poring through the shop. There was a joke shop that sold anything from mini fireworks to lollies that made you burp loudly, sweet shops that could be found around every corner, a pharmacy, a general market for your essentials around the home, and lots more.

My favourite was Quality Quidditch Supplies. It was a shop entirely devoted to Quidditch, the all-time beloved of all wizarding sports. I wasn't too sure about how it was begun, but here's how it works…there are two teams, with seven people on each side. They play above a large field with three differently-positioned goal posts with golden hoops on their tops at each end. Each team has three Chasers – they do most of the goal-scoring, by throwing a red ball called the Quaffle through their opposition's goal posts. There are two Beaters – they carry clubs and try to knock down players by hitting rock-hard balls at them called Bludgers, which also fly around the field trying to do the same thing. There is the Keeper, who protects the hoops from thrown Quaffles, and finally there's the Seeker. His/her job is to catch the Golden Snitch, a tiny ball with silver wings that moved at a terrific speed. If it was caught, a hundred and fifty points would instantly be rewarded to that team, and the game is over even though there is some chance that they might not end up being the winning team.

I went for Puddlemere United, despite all the losses they had had to endure through all their games.

That day, the shop display window was drowning under a crowd of Quidditch wannabes. I leaned against the shop opposite them and waited for them to disperse. When there was barely anybody left around the shop, I made my way forward to see the new broom mounted there for myself.

The same time I did, another person made a quick move towards the window. Puzzled, I stopped and looked to see who it was, this other person who had waited for everyone to leave like I had.

It was a boy. From what he looked like I couldn't take much from, all I could see was the back of his head. He had short black hair, not so short that he couldn't have it moving about as he walked. His clothes were horrible. Not that they didn't visually suit him or they were out of fashion, but they were simply too big for him. He looked like he was hauling extra skin around himself rather than an oversized gray t-shirt, and the hems of his jeans were frayed from dragging behind him on the ground. He stopped in front of the window and looked up, in a sort of childlike curiosity, at the broom suspended there.

I spent a good five minutes deciding whether or not I should go and look at the broom alongside him. He was only one person, not a whole group of people who would away as soon as they caught sight of me. It wasn't as if I would be afraid of this particular boy, even if he could've been from one of those groups of people…or was he? What was he doing standing alone like that? Was he some kind of a loner who nobody liked? If he was bona fide in that way, then I shouldn't have that much of a problem. He would understand.

I had taken only a few steps forward when he turned around. Our eyes met, and I gasped.

In that moment of acknowledgement, I had time to take in his features. He had an incredibly thin face, giving him the impression of someone who had been without good health for a long while. I felt that in his looks alone, I could already feel what kind of character he was, and that he was a wistful person, a person full of thought and pensiveness. He was nothing remarkable – that is, until you looked at his eyes.

I was several feet away, maybe the length of a pool table or more, but I still saw the glint as the sun reflected on him. They were green, and the brightest green I had ever seen on anyone's face before and a long time to come. I just stood there, staring at the still sparks of glitter shining at me, till I noticed the look on this boy's face. Far from being puzzled now, he looked terrified. And without one glance back at me, he turned and ran off down the street, as fast as his legs could carry him.

I spent the outing in Diagon Alley cursing myself for thinking such a thought as to why a person would ever accept me in any way. What a joke! Stupid Kora, I would know now not to make the same mistake again._ Everybody_ was part of the group, it didn't matter _who_ they were. It would just be the same.

I went into Gringotts, the wizard bank, and took out ten Galleons – it would last me the week, hopefully. I did some shopping, then went home and started on supper. When that was done I sat at the table and read '_How to Manage Jinxes Around The House_' while I ate, something Pop would never have let me do if he had been there.

When he still hadn't come home by the time our clock chimed for midnight, I packed up and went to bed.


	3. Letters by owl

Chapter Three: Letters by owl

I woke up to the most amazing feeling in the world. Someone was stroking my hair. I knew immediately that it was Pop, and I turned over to see him for the first time in weeks.

He looked tired. His graying brown hair, usually radiant and active-enticing, was limp and sticking up in odd places. His eyes were usually lighter, but now the light had been put out, and he looked older than he really was. But then I looked beyond that and I saw the old humour starting to come out again, and the familiar smile that was beginning to bloom across his face.

"In good health, I presume, Kora?" he said, his voice as strong as always.

I pushed myself up and hugged him as tightly as I could. The hug meant two things. Firstly, it meant that I was more than delighted at his long-awaited return. Secondly, I was furious and never, ever wanted to let go in case he disappeared again. He seemed to pick up both reasons.

"It's wonderful to see you too, Kora, and I'm really sorry that I left you all alone like that. The Department has just been so busy, and everyone expects the Head to manage the whole thing at large, so…" He shrugged, and I interrogated most fiercely, "What are you doing in there, anyway?"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, now, that won't do. What do you say we go down to breakfast, huh? I've quite overgrown having to eat cold porridge every morning this last fortnight. I'd very much rather have a nice mug of coffee this morning, in just the way you make it."

Pop had reason not to tell me what went on in his Department – he's an Unspeakable, a member of the Ministry who worked in the Department of Mysteries. No one ever knows what goes on in that section except the workers themselves, and they're all strictly banned from telling anybody else, even their families.

In the kitchen, Pop surprised me by saying, "Happy Birthday." I had completely forgotten that it was the first of July, the day I turned eleven this year. I had actually been looking forward to it, but I must had forgotten while I was waiting for Pop to come home from work. Now that he had, I felt that I couldn't have gotten a better gift.

Pop raised a hand, and I halted on the spot. Then he reached high into the air between us and pulled out of it a cloak.

It was a light, flimsy looking thing. The colour swampy green, it felt almost like a fabric made of moss, however the smell of it was pine fresh and it reminded me of mint. I had a feeling that it couldn't be just an ordinary cloak. Things like this could be found in the wizarding world, so I wasn't too sure.

"What is it?" "Do you like it?" "It's wonderful." "It's an Imperceptible Cloak. When you put it on, it works sort of like an Invisibility Cloak, except with this one people can see you. They just don't _notice_ you."

That was strange, even for me, and I'm known to have descended from an evil wizard who's got plans to return and wreak havoc on the world of mankind.

"You mean, I can wear this, and go anywhere I wanted, and people would just ignore me? What if I wear it and walk into a men's room at Diagon Alley?" "They'll simply take a look at who's come in, then they'll go back to their business." "Pop, where did you get this?"

He cracked a smile and ruffled my hair. "I have my sources. And remember that I do a fair bit of traveling when I am doing my duty. It could've come from Arabia, for all you know."

I thought it was a rather useful present, but I couldn't help looking beyond.

"This is good. Now people won't stare at me so much."

Pop froze in the middle of cracking eggs into a pan, so that the eggs too stopped moving and hung in midair for a whole two seconds. Next thing I knew, I was deep within one of his bear hugs. He gave really good hugs actually; they always seemed to make me feel better in the end.

Finally, after ten hours, he released me and said with a troubled smile, "Silly girl. I didn't get you that cloak for such reason as that. I just had in mind that you like going around your own way, after all, I spent half my life hounding you away from Knockturn Alley. I'm giving you freedom without risk of danger, that's what I'm doing." His face took on just a tiny tint of sadness as he said the next sentence. "Lord knows what you have been through while I was gone. I promise that I will make it up to –"

There was a loud screech, followed by an angry hoot that sparked up a torrent of noise and scuffle outside. With a look of bewilderment Pop looked out the kitchen window, then hastily raised it up. In flew a barn owl, feathers flared and looking very disgruntled. I caught a glimpse of Torque's red form swooping about above the front yard, still screaming as loud as she could, before Pop closed the window and drowned her out.

"Really, Kora, that bird of yours has some serious attitude problems! This poor owl's had half his heart up its throat from all the panicking it's had." "Pop, Torque didn't do a thing, it's the owls who provoke her, maybe if you read my bird encyclopedia you'd know." "Yes, yes, Kora…"

He wasn't listening. He had taken the bundle of letters off the irritated owl's leg, had paid the five Knuts for the delivery (the owl took off with an angry hoot) and was already looking through the contents. As he did, he talked about what the other Departments had had to deal with.

" – you know Clemente Odelstroff? The Russian Head of Wizarding Sports? She's trying to sue us for a migrating flock of Hippogriffs that flew into the Quidditch pitch at Tobruk while the game between East and West Middle East was still going on." He threw up his hands in disbelief. "Tobruk isn't even in the Russian Empire! It's up to the Middle East to settle matters within their territory. I tell you, that Clemente Odelstroff…Fudge had it all wrong, instead of getting a universal translator he gets _me_ to stay in Russia for two days going over the case with some Russian representative who couldn't speak English to save his life. The Ministry's barking these days…I didn't get enough time to…finish what _I_ was doing at home base…"

He went on to tell me about Engorgement Charms on a farmer's crops in Hampshire, a troupe of flying cushions over Windsor, and a couple of suspicious earthquakes over in Bristol that was thought to have some connection with a wizard experimenting on old, broken down bulldozers halfway across the state.

Pop is a slow reader at the best of times – he was only up to his second envelope. I took the rest of the junk mail and sat next to him to look through them.

Nothing…nothing…we had to check in for a vulnerability test in account of the Curse of the Bogies going around…a coupon for a ladies' shop down in Diagon Alley, we couldn't use that, obviously…bill…bill…another coupon…

Then I came across an envelope. Without much thought for it I picked it out of the pile and was just about to hand it over to my grandfather when I saw who it was addressed to. It was made out of heavy parchment, a manila type of some sort. It felt grainy for the touch, and written in the address side was:

__

Kora Rastrick

27 Semillon Ave

Long Willow

Wenlock Valley

I stared at it, then looked up at Pop. He was deep in something marked with the Ministry of Magic emblem, so I knew better than to disturb him now. I turned my envelope over (_who was this from? I had never received as much as a message in my whole life_) and noted the scarlet crest that had been stamped there to keep the envelope closed, a crest that represented a lion, an eagle, a badger…and a snake. It looked awfully familiar.

I didn't want to open it. I don't know why, I guess I had just been reluctant to do so. I knew for a fact that this was a letter from Hogwarts – I had recognized the crest from the uniforms the students had worn at Diagon Alley the day before. Nobody gets a letter from Hogwarts unless…they'd been asked to _enroll themselves into the school for the first of September_…

I had to show Pop. I turned in my seat only to realize that he had already noticed, and was looking at me with surprise in his eyes.


	4. Preparations for Hogwarts

Chapter Four:Preparations for Hogwarts

I protested and protested. Pop cut me off each time. _"Kora, listen to me, darling, going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is an_ honour, _now, please don't treat it as if I'm sending you to the Hounds of Hades!!"_

And we spent the day around the kitchen table talking and (in my case) brooding about it.

It all went very fast. One minute it was Sunday and Pop was patting my hand and telling me everything was going to be fine, the next minute it was Tuesday and once again I was toppling out of the fireplace into the checkpoint at Diagon Alley. This time, I carried in my pocket a list of all things required to bring into the school.

Pop greeted me at the desk – he had been talking to the old wizard sitting there. He took me outside and swiped a heap of ash from my shoulders. "Can't wait till you reach sixth year, Kora…no more Floo Powder once you learn how to Apparate."

I resisted the urge to tell him that I was more likely to get kicked out by the end of my first year on account of everybody hating my guts too much to keep them concentrating on their exams. He seemed so enthusiastic about my enrolling at Hogwarts that I didn't want to spoil it any further for him.

Pop had meant to come around shopping with me, but the first step we took someone recognized him and bustled about him for a drink. So Pop gave me a kiss, apologized, and made plans for me to meet him in the Leaky Cauldron when I was done. Such is the life of the Head Unspeakable; nobody ever gives him time to spend with his own granddaughter.

My first stop was Gringotts – ten Galleons would not support me in getting what I needed for school. The bank is a huge place, a cavern perfected in white. It was run by goblins, short ugly things they were. Some sat in rows down the whole lobby doing work – counting coins, weighing gems, scribing and writing down inscriptions, and converting coins into Muggle money for holidaymakers. Others served as company while you took a ride down to your vault for your money, which hopefully wasn't too deep down underground otherwise you would get lost if you were unlucky enough to have wandered away from your goblin.

I went for one of the entrances to the vault chambers, and the goblin standing by took me into the dark rocky tunnel within, quite a contrast to what was shown in the lobby. There was a set of iron tracks here, and a stocky cart that looked like it would've had no place better suited to than an old mine shaft.

Going down was fun. I kept my eyes closed; I knew that all around us was darkness, and stalactites and stalagmites and maybe a ravine or two…I happened to find those kinds of features more than a little creepy.

We reached my vault in less than five minutes. They're pretty big things, with tons of security. You wouldn't believe the kinds and amounts of spells they put on these things, yet all it takes for it to open is a tiny golden key – I gave this to my goblin host and he opened it for me.

Now, I don't mean to brag because there's nothing good about it, but the Rastricks have always had wealth in the family right from the middle ages. I like to think that the piles of gold, silver and bronze aren't from the fairytale blackmail and backstabbing that my family name has been abundant of. Every time Pop gets a raise or a bonus from work, he donates it to St Mungo's Hospital or something along those kinds of institutions. We really don't need the money, although now we would have something else to pay for…my school fees for Hogwarts…

I sighed as I filled my bag with coins, ready for the day.

Up in the lobby, I saw someone I recognized. It was the boy from outside Quality Quidditch Supplies. He had just come out of one of the vault chamber entrances as well, and I could tell that he had seen me because he was up and walking down the lobby in a strangely fast pace for someone in a bank.

I don't know why I did it. I called out, "Wait! Stop!"

I don't know why _he_ did it. He stopped, and looked around at me. Once again there were those eyes, and I knew why I had done it. There was something different about this person, and I felt like I was addicted to his presence although I had only just known that he even existed.

He didn't run off as I approached him, but he looked nervous. That made me nervous, so I smiled to try and cheer both of us up. For some reason I received a huge urge to run away, but then it dispersed and I was able to talk.

"Hi." What else, what else? Quick, before he runs off again. "Are you new here?"

He didn't answer. Instead, with an alarmed expression, he shook his head.

"Er, right. So, you live around here, huh?" A nod. "Um, nice day, isn't it?"

Idiot, idiot, Kora. What a dumb question to start off a conversation. But he nodded, and desperate for something to say I looked at a piece of parchment that he was holding in his hand. Hey…that piece of parchment looked just like…

"Oh…so you're shopping around for Hogwarts as well?"

He stole a look at his list, and nodded furiously. His pale face was turning pretty red.

"Cool. So am I. I just came out of getting money from my vault, as you know already. I'm going in for my first year. You too?" Nod. At least he was still there. Okay, time for some introduction. What the heck was I doing? "I'm Kora Rastrick. What's your name?"

He hesitated for a few seconds. I was ready to tell him that it was alright, my apologies for disturbing him and that he should be on his way when he made a fast movement.

He is definitely weird, I thought as he fumbled around in his pocket, fishing out a notepad and a quill. He quickly dabbed onto the paper, then tore it out and gave it to me. Once again I got the annoying insistence to bolt for my life, but I fought it and read out loud, "'Jim Rickman'. Ah. So, Jim…not so talkative, are you?"

He stared, just like he had the day we had met for the first time, but his face was getting a lot less redder which for me sparked the start of him calming down. _I_ certainly was. I gave another smile and said, "Well, Jim, if you want, we could go shopping together. It'd be interesting to hang out with someone for the day, wouldn't it?"

He nodded, and my next bit of paper read, '_Okay_.' That bit of paper made my day.

It was Jim's idea to work down the list, regardless if one of the shops involved was just a few feet away. We went to Madame Malkin's, who looked genuinely surprised to see me out with somebody other than Pop, and was very nice from when she and her assistant pinned up our robes for us to handing us the parcels over the counter.

"Have a good year at school!" she granted us. "Cheerio!"

We went to Flourish and Blotts and had a look around. There really were the most interesting books there, and I found out that Jim was interested in Quidditch just like everybody else was. That was something normal at least. We paid for our school books ("Miranda Goshawk? Newt Scamander? These books ought to be good – my Pop recommends them all the time") then went on to get a cauldron. After that we visited the apothecary to get our potions kit. It was foul in there, but nevertheless it was interesting and we spent a good half hour inside poring through the bottles, jars, barrels and things hanging from the walls and ceiling.

We came across the last few dregs of the list. "Right, Jim. Do you want an owl, a cat, or a toad? We can get the owl at the Emporium, but the cat and toad will have to be at the pet shop up the street."

He pointed to the word 'owl', so we went to the Emporium and he bought a nice tawny.

'_I think I'll name him Lester_,' his note scribed rather proudly.

All that was left now was the wand.

I wasn't used to seeing wands around. Wizards and witches get through their whole lives using wands, but Pop was one of those who don't usually need a wand to do magic. I had gotten used to seeing him bringing the kettle to the boil with just a wave of his hand if he was in a hurry, and just yesterday he had conjured my cloak into the kitchen from wherever else with nothing but his mind. Pop truly was powerful, I guessed…

We went to Ollivander's, makers of wands since 382 BC according to their shop sign. We went in. You could practically see the dust hanging in the air break up as we opened the door – it was an old shop, and everything seemed to be covered in the dry, whittle stuff. There were shelves lined up inside the store, all of them piled to their limits with long, rectangular boxes. Jim was at the front, looking around with awe at how many wands were in that shop, and as I watched him I thought about how he talked through writing…was he that shy? And how he had stayed by me all this time…for that, I was grateful. It was certainly going to be the first and last time I was ever going to be with anybody for a day, that was for sure.

Mr Ollivander was an old wizard, but he didn't look that old. He moved with lack of agility, alright, but he wasn't that old. He appeared amongst the shelves and peered over the two of us through his glasses.

"Jim, Rickman!" Both Jim and I gave a start. How did he know Jim's name?

"By golly, Jim, how fast time flies. You have grown up so much from the last time I saw you at your christening. And you…"

Mr Ollivander was looking at me with his gray-silver eyes. Yes, he wasn't old, but he was creepy. I didn't think I liked Mr Ollivander very much if he gave me the shivers.

"…Ms Rastrick. Going to Hogwarts, I assume…all very good, very good…"

He didn't look as if he had meant it. But then he was away, somewhere in the darkness of the store, rustling and knocking things over when we can hear him. Jim and I exchanged glances just as he reappeared again.

"For you, Mr Rickman…this 12-inch, lax wood wand with a unicorn hair core. And Ms Rastrick…try this 13-inch, birch wood wand, phoenix feather core."

Jim gave his a wave – at first nothing happened, then there was a rush of air and a large bookcase crashed from where it had been standing next to the door onto the top of the counter between us and the wandbroker, making a terrific noise. Mr Ollivander cleared away the dust, coughing as he waved his wand – "Nope, that can't be right, we'll have to try another one – Ms Rastrick, go on, now –"

I raised my hand, and did the first wave of a wand that I had ever done in my whole life.

A couple of sparks shot out, and severed the shelf-climbing ladder in front of me in half. It fell to the floor, narrowly missing Mr Ollivander himself. He was far from being mad, I hoped. He seemed to enjoy the fact that we had not gotten our real wands as yet.

It took us the best part of the late morning to finally find our wands…although it was something that I was definitely not proud of.

Jim was trying out the first one that I had tried, and had managed to get from it a large rainbow stripe running through the air like an eel. This seemed to make Mr Ollivander satisfied. A short while after that, he decided on handing me an 11-inch, ash wand with a dragon tail hair core.

I questioned him about the core. He said, "It was popular once for warlocks in the eleventh century to have dragon hair in their wands. It is a fine instrument, sturdy enough to withstand any spells fired at it in intention of destroying it. It can still be broken, though, so –"

He gasped. I had already given a wave, and everything had changed.

It was as if a large blanket had been settled over the store. Everything was darker, and suddenly the atmosphere was acting as if it was pressing a weight on us. Something was trying to push my arms down…I didn't let go of the wand…they wanted it…they couldn't have it…where was everybody, where was I, who was talking, no, stop laughing, I couldn't…the loud, rich laugh echoed in my ears, who _was_ that, who –

Then I was back. Everything was the same. Mr Ollivander was still in the position he had been in before the blackout, Jim was still standing there. They both looked unsettled.

"Well, Ms Rastrick, it seems that we have found your wand."

There had been no sense in what had happened in the wand shop, but I decided to ignore it. I must have been hearing things, since Jim had no recollection at all of anybody else who had been in the shop with us. I didn't want to make myself even stranger than usual.

We visited Quality Quidditch Supplies, and stood outside looking at the new Comet that was on display. Jim let out a silent sigh. Just for the heck of it I said, "When you get to Hogwarts, do you hope to be in the Quidditch team?"

He nodded, and calmly scribbled, '_I'd like to be a Seeker. They're cool._'

"If I ever try out for the team, I'd like to try being a Beater. Knocking people off their brooms with a club sounds fun. That's if you're as twisted as me."

He gave the first smile that day, even if it had been tiny and had only lasted a microsecond.

On the way to the Leaky Cauldron Jim waved a goodbye. I had been hoping that he would stay longer for the company of it, but I waved back. It was time I let him go, the poor boy must've been dying to get away from me anyway. I went to the brick wall separating Diagon Alley from The Leaky Cauldron and tapped on it three times with my new wand. As the bricks moved away to reveal the pub's back door, I looked at the thin wooden stick in my hand and wondered. What _had _happened back there? It was as if I had passed out, although I had been standing up the whole time. Night seemed to have come early, and just for those few seconds. And…it was weird, but the moment I waved that wand it was as if a lot of people were talking…and that laugh…

Inside, Pop saw my trolley and chuckled. "Well, that's quite a lot. Had fun while it lasted?" I just smiled. I couldn't bring myself to tell him about my wand, or even Jim, although he had been the best thing that had happened to me so far. I don't know why.


	5. Till the end of August

Chapter Five:Till the End of August

On the 30th of August all Hogwarts students were supposed to go to the King's Cross

Station in London to board a train that would take us all to the school. On the first of

September school would start, and it would be the beginning of a whole new world. I couldn't help feeling just a bit nervous, despite everything Pop said. I completely forgot everything about keeping him happy and told him about my woes.

"Don't worry about it, Kora. If you don't already know, _I _went to that school and I loved it. Of course, I had more brains than friends but hey, it's the learning that's fun. And never mind what I said just then because you _will _get friends. You _will. _There's no use dreading, because no one goes without a friend at Hogwarts. People are just too nice there."

"But, Pop –! That was in _your _day! You don't understand what kids are capable of now!"

"I should. I've got one to take care, now, haven't I?" He laughed and slugged my shoulder, and I just sighed in dismay.

By some miraculous way, he had managed to make the Minister of Magic let him off for the whole month, just to be with me. Cornelius Fudge hadn't been happy, Pop had told me, but he had understood that I was being neglected and had agreed to give Pop a holiday. While Pop was glad with that, he wasn't happy about the arrangements for his temporary replacement.

"Bloody Al Jefferson's been appointed for my spot! There's _no wonder _the Ministry's going down. You wait, Kora, in a few days' time they'll be pining for me. He's going to muddle up everything just like he did last time, then everybody can blame Fudge _just like they did last time!"_

Pop was passionate about his work, and just as loyal to the Ministry. He's just a beautiful person. On our last month together he took me out of the valley and we set off exploring, at the same time speculating about Hogwarts.

Pop hadn't lied. He really had enjoyed his seven years there. As he talked about it – on the bus from Buckingham, on the train going to Yorkshire, on the ferry on the English Channel, walking down the street in London, eating out at a restaurant in Brooklyn – I could just hear the fun he had showing through his voice.

"I remember finding out that the first year was hard. There were so many things to memorize, so many new things to learn! Even if you came from a wizarding family you still had trouble with the school work. But then the other years came on, and although they were even harder I got through them. Then fifth year – ha ha, that was OWLs year. It was bloody well the hardest I had ever experienced, but it was worth the study. It was my fifth year that got me through to the seventh, which was NEWTs year."

"Pop, don't make it sound so hard, I know that you got made Head Boy and your marks topped almost everybody else's in your year."

"Yes, well, having almost no friends helped with that, now, didn't it? Anyway although Hogwarts sounds like all work and no fun, it isn't all like that. There's the Quidditch every year, and Hogwarts is so abundant in open space and forest so there's always somewhere to explore when you're bored, and the castle is so big –! I miss that place. Did you know that there are secret passages everywhere? Behind a portrait, under a rug, inside a cupboard, behind a statue…so many! And they led to so many places around Hogwarts, whether it's inside the castle or outside on the grounds. You'll have fun there. Seriously, you will. As long as you keep yourself out of trouble, you'll be fine."

Pop sounded so reassuring.

When we reached the station on that final day, all my nervousness came back as I realized that this would be the first time I would be leaving Pop behind, for as long as a few months or even a year. I didn't know how I'd be able to handle the loss of his presence, and I almost didn't want to go through to Platform 9 ¾, the gateway from the Muggle station to the wizarding station. I didn't even want to let go of Pop, so we went through together.

I was used to the entrance necessities for the Leaky Cauldron, so it freaked me out when we rushed through a entirely normal brick wall between Platform Nine and Platform Ten and ended up on a entirely new Platform that was teeming with people dressed in robes and hauling trolleys mounted with trunks and suitcases and broomsticks and what not.

These were my kind, but I still felt left out amongst all of them.

"Look, Kora," Pop said over the unbelievable noise of this station. He pointed to what he wanted me to see. "The Hogwarts Express!"

I looked from where I had planted myself at his side. On the tracks there was a magnificent train, red and shiny like it had just been beautifully hand-polished. It was bellowing smoke from its engine carriage, and I pretended childishly for a moment that it was tooting to us kids, saying stuff like _Hello!!_ and _Welcome Aboard!!! _It certainly felt as if it was saying just that, and I felt a bit better. Golden writing was emblazoned on its side, _Hogwarts Express. _It really was a pretty nice looking train, compared to the ones we'd been riding these last twenty-five days around the Muggle world.

Without my say in it Pop handed my luggage over to the custodian. I grabbed his arm and, trying to sound urgent, said, 'But, Pop, I need some stuff from my trunk. What if I get bored and I want to read a book or something?"

"You will _not _read books, Kora Rastrick, you will socialize. Do you hear?"

"Pop –" "It's an order, young lady."

He meant the best. The train conductor was leaning out from inside his carriage, bellowing in a magnified voice that the train would be leaving in five minutes. There was a blurry of movement – every kid remaining on the platform was rushing to get last kisses and hugs goodbye from their parents and guardians. I looked up at Pop, and realized for the second time that holiday how older he looked. He ruffled my hair, and kissed my forehead. I hugged him for that one last time and willed myself not to cry. I had never cried in my whole life, at least not to my knowledge. Anyway I failed, but I brushed the beginning of the trickle away with my hand and looked up at Pop again. He was smiling, so I managed one as well.

"You be good now, Corporal." He called me that sometimes. "Don't get expelled too soon if you're planning to turn evil without hearing my opinion first."

"That's a rotten joke, Pop." "I know, Kora. Go on, before they all leave without you."

I went inside the train and hastily found an empty compartment by the station side. I could see Pop out the window – he was waving. I waved back, then the train was moving. No matter how hard I tried, Pop was unable to keep himself in my sights. I looked at Pop's face in my mind, memorizing it for the months to come. Then the station disappeared altogether, and for that one moment I was alone again, just like I had been just that month and few weeks ago.


	6. The Ride to Hogwarts

Chapter Six:The Ride to Hogwarts

At first there was the landscape of the city, we were snaking through it on the rails like we were the only ones in the world and nobody could see us. Then it all changed. Instead of the tall buildings of the city it was the low structures of a town, then another, and another, until it eventually came to fields of grass with mountains on the background. It really was beautiful, and I wished that I had a camera.

The beginning of the trip had been terrible. I had left the compartment door open, and everyone who had passed by had looked in seeing the extra space, then had seen me and scurried off as fast as they could help it along the corridor. Actually I had meant to leave the door open – I didn't want people opening the door and beginning to ask if they could sit here before seeing who I was and making a break for it. I'd rather prefer to avoid the whole embarrassing scenario. I became used to the sound of hurried feet in the hallway, and spent the time looking out the window. It was a shock when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned, and looked up into a pair of bright, dazzling green eyes.

"Oh! Um, Jim. Hi. Hey, I haven't seen you for a month since we met. How have you been?" I had panicked. What was he doing here?

Jim smiled and gave a thumbs-up, then held up a note for me to read.

"You want to sit here? Sure, uh, sit down, be my guest."

I wondered if he had seen me some other time before, then kept on walking. Maybe there had been no other available space, and he had had no choice but to come back to my compartment. Yeah, maybe.

He was looking at Torque, who had been preening her feathers inside her cage but was now eyeing Jim's tawny owl Lester in caution. I said in explanation, "That's my friend Torque. She's a hawk, so she doesn't like owls much. Torque, Lester. Lester, Torque."

Torque gave a small hiss. I shrugged in apology, and we sat in silence.

I had forgotten all about Jim. The month that had gone by had been too great for me to have thought of anything else. Now that he was here, I was remembering all the things that I knew about him.

"So…excited about going to Hogwarts at last?"

He shrugged. In all, he didn't look too excited.

"Join the club. My Pop says it's going to be fun, despite all the work. He thinks I'm going to have a chance of socializing, but apart from you I don't think anybody else would be willing to even come near me." I shook my head. "Let's not go into that. What have you been doing lately?"

He reached for his notepad, and gave a huge jump when I pointed my wand at him.

"No, you're not, you're going to _talk _and you're not going to even touch that."

The strange thing was, as I raised my wand I suddenly experienced something that felt like fear, like I was the one with a wand being pointed at. It went away very quickly, but I put it down anyway. "Kidding, kidding. But _why _can't you talk like everybody else?"

He just looked at me, and for the first time I realized something.

"Wait…is it…because you _can't _talk?"

He nodded, and I must've called myself a million names in my head just then.

"W-well, why didn't you tell me sooner?" A shrug, and then he looked out the window. I couldn't tell if he was really just taking in the scenery or he was really thinking, he _always _looked as if he was thinking.

While he thought, I thought about how frustrating it would have been for him. Had he been born that way? He never would've heard the sound of his own voice before. It was sad in a lot of ways, and I wondered how his parents were coping with it. It didn't look like a recent thing – Jim had never opened his mouth to answer any of my questions like a recently disabled person would've accidentally done. He would've had time to get used to it. I looked at him, but he was still facing out the window. I looked at my hand, which was resting on the ledge of the compartment window, and was baffled to see the streak of ink down my palm. I didn't recall writing anything before the trip. I must've just gotten it off the station or the train somehow. I tried to rub it off, but it wouldn't come off so I left it be.

The trip took a long time. We spent the first half in silence, listening to the chatter of the people in the other carriages. They all sounded pretty excited to be going to Hogwarts. I wished that I could feel what they were feeling. I wished that I were normal.

Night was falling. Outside, everything was getting darker. Only the outlines of the mountains could be seen now. By then the only things keeping me going were the fudge muffins I had in my stomach – we had bought from the trolley witch when she had come along to our compartment about an hour earlier.

I sighed. "Gee, Hogwarts is a long way away from everything else, isn't it?"

Jim gave me a strange look then. I didn't know what for.

It became apparent a few seconds later. I had just thought to myself, _I've decided. I'm going to tell you my secret now, no matter what._

Except that it hadn't been me who'd thought it. It had just popped into my head, and the thing was, even though they hadn't come in as words I still understood what the thought was and what it was trying to say. I thought I was going mad.

__

If you can hear me…say Jim's last name out loud.

"Rickman?" I wasn't liking this. It was confusing. I had no idea what was going on, I was getting these thoughts and for what?

Jim was grinning, and I heard in my head for sure, You can hear me! You must hear me! Kora, it's me, I'm the one talking in your head, did you hear that?

Ooookay…it felt like some sort of crazy mixed-up dream. I for one do not just Kora, say something suddenly start hearing other people's voices in my You look confused, sorry I didn't take the time to explain head and Kora, listen –

"Right, Jim, stop it, I'm trying to think here!" I couldn't help exclaiming. At the same time I received two emotions in great barrels: one was a heck of a lot of satisfaction, and the other was mild happiness.

Do you feel that? That's me. Look, you gotta believe me, this is how I communicate. I can't explain how I can do it, but I can and it's…I can talk to people like this, I send my thoughts over to them. I only ever do it when…when family's around, you're the first person – outsider – I have ever really talked to. Please don't tell anyone.

Now, this was interesting. I seldom met anyone who had the ability to talk to people through their minds as well as send their emotions across to others. Shock left me, and I grinned.

"Well, _now _you're talking! That's pretty cool, it certainly makes up for your not being able to talk. Don't worry, you can trust me with that. I won't tell a soul. But that is amazing! Wow…I'm privileged to have been the first of the whole world to know this, Jim Rickman." He turned red, and his thoughts came up in my head, Yeah…I figured I couldn't keep doing the quill and paper business for too long. You looked like you were ready to kill me or something.

"You're right. Hey, so, you can broadcast yourself, like the wireless?"

If I wanted to. I could just direct myself to you and no one else would be able to hear. And I can only go over a small distance, like from the first floor of something to the fourth floor. That's all.

"Wow…and there I was thinking you were shy. You're actually not all you seem."

We had a real conversation. Delighted that Jim really could talk, I bullied him into talking the whole way so to make up lost time for before. And he didn't seem to mind. Maybe he even enjoyed having someone to talk to. My perspective of Jim changed that evening – he definitely was not part of any group. Maybe we could even become friends. We did have some things in common, like his dreading of coming to Hogwarts, his home being in my valley and just in a neighbouring block…he lived with his grand-aunt, and he liked to learn. We were just too similar.

We reached the next train station half an hour later. I knew the story from when Pop was telling me in Milton – all students would get off, and while second years and upwards would go to Hogwarts via carriages the first years would have to be taken there by boat. And the person taking us would be…

We spotted him the moment we stepped off the train. He was so huge that no one could have missed him, even someone all the way down the end of the platform. Swinging a large lantern above our heads (Makes you feel puny, doesn't it?) he called out, "Firs' years! Firs' years come gather 'ere, get a move on now, we don' wa' be late fer the feast, now, do we?" His voice boomed exactly like a growl from the heavens. We couldn't do much but squeeze through the crowd over to where this humungous person draped in fur was standing, looking over us with tiny black eyes peeking through a nest of black beard, hair and eye brows. He seemed surprised by us – the eyes crinkled up in a smile and I felt better about it, he wasn't going to hurt us.

"Is tha' everyone, then? By George, yer a small lot this year, arncha? Don' mean nuthin' bad, now, nuthin's bad…well, 'ts time we went on our way, now. Follow me! An' it a be good if yer stay close now, don' want to get lost in these parts…if need be jus' yell out for Hagrid an' I'll come get yer…" It was clear that some of the first years didn't find this reassuring at all.

I began walking, but Jim stayed still. I turned to see that he was staring, open-mouthed, at the second years and upwards. Or rather, the horseless carriages they were riding in. I took his sleeve and gave a small tug. "Come on, Jim…" He came, but he kept looking back at them, still apparently mesmerized. Once we had entered the darkness off the train station, though, he kept quite close.

The boats were waiting for us, bobbing up and down at the edge of a misty lake. When I say misty I mean real misty – were we supposed to guide our own boats? If so, how were we going to get through the fog? I got into one – Jim and 'Hagrid' were the only ones who got in after me. I couldn't help breathing in a sigh of relief when the boats started moving on their own accord, slowly following a path that they obviously knew even through a dense murkiness.

It was cold. I had noticed while getting off the train, but this time it felt colder. I couldn't tell if those were Jim's feelings I was feeling, or just my own. It was confusing. Jim definitely was cold, he was hugging himself and two glints of light on his face were dancing as he shivered.

"Yer Kora Rastrick?'

I jumped in my seat before realizing it had only been Hagrid. I had to crane my neck all the way back in order to look up and face him.

"Yeah, I am. How did you know?"

He shuffled a bit, which might have been a shrug. "Had a hunch y'were. An' yer the Rickman boy, arncha?"

Startled, Jim gave a quick series of nods. How did he know that?

It was dark but I could make out Hagrid's eyes as he grunted somewhat knowledgably.

"Mmm…tha's int'resting…fancy seein' you two in me boat, then. Yer gonna have wonders at Hogwarts School, no need ter worry 'bou' that!"

His last sentence seemed to have been directed to all of us. Looking around at what I could see in the torchlights, I could see that a little more than half of us looked positively terrified. Others were sitting in their boats in silence, and those who knew each other were talking amongst themselves quietly.

A picture flashed into my head of a cave entrance above the water, surrounded by mist. I looked up and I saw exactly the same thing up ahead – Jim had sent me a mental picture of what he had seen before me.

"That's clever, Jim," I said, but he wasn't listening. He was looking at something a great deal above the cave – everybody was. I looked to.

It was Hogwarts. It was huge! The lights in its many windows and doors threw a dim, yellow light over this part of the lake. Its towers and turrets and large cathedral-like structure was set on this cliff above the cave, and it went out of sight as our boats floated into this cave.

Excitement was building up now, and there was a little more chatter. A few minutes into this galleon, we reached a pebbly shore. Ahead of it was the opening of a tunnel, dark and mossy looking, with blue flames lighting it up every few feet.

Moss and rocky steps steeply leading up did not work well for the feet, as Jim found out. I heard a scuffle, and the next second my friend was at my ankles.

"You alrigh' down there?"

Er, tell him I'm fine. "He's okay."

Hagrid mumbled about a heart attack, then we were walking again. It wasn't long before we reached a large wooden door.

"Well, this is where it all ends, folks, an' where it all starts." Hagrid gave a smile, and knocked on the door.


	7. Into the Great Hall

Chapter Seven: Into the Great Hall

The door opened. In the fast movement my eyes stayed right in front of me so that I saw nothing but a waist covered in a vivid green material. I looked up into the stern old face of a tall woman. She was looking over us under her pointed witch's hat, as if scanning us for some reason. Then she gave a nod and said in a voice just as firm, "Thank you, Rubeus." "Always my pleasure t' do so, professor." And with a wink to us all, he set off from us.

This new teacher led us into a great cavern. It would have been a cavern if it hadn't been inside the castle. It was so spacious, and so big, that it could have fit maybe a whole field in it, and the ceiling was so far up that we could've stuck an oak tree in there and the tip of its peak wouldn't have even touched it. On each wall there were a row of doors, but there was one that she took us to. It was a large, wooden set of double doors that reached almost halfway up the wall – beyond them we could hear the faint sound of a thousand people talking and laughing. The professor halted us in front of these doors, and turned to face us.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. I'm sure that most of you have heard of this institution before, either from your parents or elsewhere. It is a school entirely devoted to teaching the many skills and arts of magic, and everything else involved within that circumference of your future. It is where you will be doing your studies for the next seven years, and as it is important that you fully understand what you are coming up to, you must listen to what I, Professor McGonagall, tell you today." She paused, then continued, "In the Great Hall, you will all be individually picked and chosen into one of four Houses. These are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin." There was some mumbling, and McGonagall waited for it to subside (it did so very quickly under her glare) before beginning again. "You will stay in these Houses for the rest of your lives here at Hogwarts, so it is encouraged that you form a kind of family tie with the people you live with. This is not only within your specified House, it must also be with the other Houses regardless of coming House competitions, which is something else. Every year we hold a competition for the House Cup that lasts through the whole annum. The winner has its base on having the most House points of all the Houses. You get House points by excelling in your subjects, outside of classes, and doing special tasks or errands, it all depends, really, the message is to behave exceptionally well and it won't be doubted that your House will come out the winner."

She took a breath, flaring her nostrils slightly. "Now, if you will stay here like obedient children, I shall be back in a short while." She walked from us and entered the room with the double doors via a smaller door by it. Instantly, everybody started their chatting again.

My nana gave me the exact same speech as that, Jim said. His thoughts felt a bit downcast. I turned to look at him and said, "Stop feeling sad, you're making _me _feel a little put out." He raised his eye brows. You could feel my homesickness? "Probably."

Hey…which House do you think you'll be in? "Honestly, I hope it isn't Gryffindor."

He didn't say anything to that. Obviously he knew the story that followed the Rastricks when it came to Hogwarts. To break the tension I had caused, I said cheerily, "But hey, wouldn't it be interesting to be in Hogwarts anyway? No matter what House you're in, you still have the same priorities around like everybody else. What would be different?"

I had a feeling that someone nearby had been about to retort to that, but McGonagall came in time to stop whoever it was. "Follow me, please," she said, and the doors opened.

A rush of noise whooshed out, but it abruptly stopped. Every head in the Great Hall had turned, and every eye was upon us. Jim immediately piled all his nervousness on top of me, but I pushed the pile away. There was no way that I was going to feel nervous in front of everybody here.

McGonagall had begun to make her way down the Hall. As we followed in silence, I took time to look around and see what we were parading in.

The Hall was huge, maybe as big as the entrance hall we had come into. It was lit up by hundreds of floating candles suspended above four incredibly long tables, each occupied greatly by students wearing the black uniforms Hogwarts was accustomed to, and all of them were watching us walk down the aisle with curious, thoughtful looks on their faces. I shivered under their gaze, and decided to avoid it altogether. I looked up again.

Above the candles, stars shone dazzlingly in a sky that was dotted here and there with thin, wispy clouds. Pop had told me about this – the ceiling had been enchanted to imitate what the sky was like outside. It was an ancient piece of magic, so it showed a tint of how old the school really was in a way.

The students weren't the only people filling the Hall. Everywhere

Up ahead, there was a raised, wooden platform. On that platform was a fifth table, this one occupied by adults dressed in the ordinary way wizards and witches usually went, robes and all. Out of the whole Hall, they had the best spot, for they could see over the whole room and easily keep watch over us all. It was freaky, really.

At first I paid no attention to that table. But when McGonagall eventually brought us to line up in front of the platform, I started taking notice. There were a few witches, watching with probing eyes as we struggled not to collapse under our stress. There was Hagrid, easily visible down one end of the table. There was an empty spot which I took to be McGonagall's…a nervous looking wizard whom I doubted would've looked entirely in place if he was to have been down here with us…and strangely there was a man who looked almost like a Muggle, with an ordinary t-shirt on with _Ripcurl _on the front, and a modern-Muggle crew cut. For a moment I wondered if he had gotten lost whilst wondering around the Hogwarts surroundings, but surely the teachers wouldn't have let him sit up at their table if so…

I noticed two people at the same time. One of them was Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, sitting right in the middle of the table and looking right into my eyes that I gave a barely audible gasp. He _really _freaked me out then, and for one horrible second I felt like…I don't know. The feeling went away before I could administer what it had wanted me to do. Whatever it had been, it had been something horrible. Dumbledore continued not realizing what had just gone through my head, watching me for some time more. He was old, but he didn't look frail like most white-haired, long-bearded wizards in my time. He seemed to be bursting with invisible joy, and although nobody could see it everybody could feel it. His eyes – apparently the same colour as his robes – sent light blue Christmas lights my way, and I found myself looking down at the floor to avoid it.

The other person was one of the teachers, and he was a sight for eyes yearning to be made twitch. I didn't need to look under the tabletop to know that he was dressed all in black, I could tell by the black tunic, black cloak…even black hair and…black eyes. They too were staring like all the rest, but up this close I could see the hardness in them, like this teacher was something else although it was sure that it was nothing positive. Like the Headmaster, his gaze was on me. Actually, looking up at all the matured faces above us, they were _all _looking at me. Trying my hardest not to be conspicuous, I slowly sank deeper behind the others and took refuge behind a tall redheaded boy.

It took me a minute to realize that there was suddenly a stool on the stage, that a frayed old pointed hat was placed upon it, and McGonagall was holding a scroll and talking.

"Now when I call out your name, you will come up to this chair and put on this hat. You will be Sorted into your Houses, then you will step off and find a seat at your allocated House table."

And so the Sorting was begun. She started with "Leila Duntroon!" A jittery looking girl went up and sat on the stool looking at us all. McGonagall put the hat on her head, and the thing bellowed so unexpectantly – even though Pop had told me the story before – that I received a bit of a fright…or maybe it had been Jim's, I wasn't too sure.

"_Hufflepuff!"_ The table to the left gave a cheer and some applause. Leila took the hat off and positively skipped to her new House as if relieved she had been put into the dud house.

"Daniel Errow" went into the House next to Hufflepuff on the right, which was Ravenclaw, and "Cornelia Gapplegate" went into Hufflepuff as well.

"Fritz Fronswick" was the first person to go into Slytherin, the table to the far left. And on went the list…Gryffindor…again…Slytherin…Gryffindor…Slytherin…Hufflepuff, Slytherin…Ravenclaw…Ravenclaw…Hufflepuff…Slytherin…there had to be at least forty of us, the Sorting was a rather long process.

Amid the hoots and back-slapping, I found myself thinking, _Please put me into Slytherin! Please put me into Slytherin! I swear I won't mind any teasing, I'll cop it all. Just don't put me into Gryffindor!_

"Gryffindor!" The whole Hall went quieter than before when McGonagall had first called my name out. It was my turn, and the hat had made the decision already. It had put the curse on me, exactly what I had feared.

It was exactly what everyone had feared as well, judging by the looks on their faces. Even the teachers were squirming not to start talking amongst themselves. I couldn't do much of anything, sighing and taking the hat off before walking over to the Gryffindor table. There were no cheers, but there were no offences made as well and I was glad for that. I sat down, and immediately both people sitting on my either side moved away as far as they could so that I was given a wide berth.

I wished for Pop so badly that I thought for a second that I was going to cry again.

I didn't hear the next name, but I heard the hat shout,_ "Gryffindor!" _and my House was cheering for –

Jim. There he was, walking down from the platform towards us, looking intensely relieved. I'm in Gryffindor! My whole family's been in Gryffindor! He sounded pretty pleased with himself. He made to come sit in the space beside me, but just as he was going to an older boy called to him from the more upper end of the table, "Hey, Jim! Jim, boy, come sit with us."

Jim froze. Then, giving me an apologetic look, he walked off, and I was left alone.

I couldn't help wanting to fume. That nasty prat, only taking Jim away so that I was even more of a social reject than I already was. That was it, coming to Hogwarts was a huge mistake.

We had dinner in the means of food appearing out of nowhere (well, it came from somewhere of course but for the meantime it was nowhere), real gourmet stuff that I wasn't used to like roasts, real mashed potatoes and not the lumpy stuff I always made, trifle and ribs and bits of kidney, and something I had never tasted before: orange juice.

After we all had eaten as much as we could hold, Dumbledore stood at his seat and smiled at us cheerily.

"To our more older students and, particularly, staff,"(he winked),"yes it is another year at this wonderful school, the first thing I shall say is to welcome you all back. Hopefully you will all enjoy your future school days as much as you most certainly have done the previous year. And to all our new students who have joined us in their first year, I bid you the most very special welcome of all. There is no doubt that you will enjoy yourselves whilst living and learning here at Hogwarts, you see we try to make it fun sometimes, and although we are not sure if we are doing things right we _are _sure that you will enjoy your time here anyway. There are just some little issues to be faced here that can void your luxury just the tiniest bit…"

His voice was like Pop's. Despite his age he sounded unscarred by anything…whilst it was old-sounding and scratchy in some places, he sounded very much alive, and still a far way off from the misfortunes of elderly hood.

"The majority of us here at Hogwarts – or should I say the sensible ones here at Hogwarts – all know that the Forbidden Forest that stretches on our land is absolutely out of bounds for all students, and under no circumstances are any of you to enter it unless accompanied by a prefect, Head Boy, Girl, or teacher, and for a very decent reason such as collecting certain plants and herbs for a potion, which should not be required to do as we have all necessary ingredients here for any potion you can tackle. So, to keep it short, keep out of the forest! And by special request, as done every year by our loyal caretaker Argus Filch, the following items of mass destruction are now banned from the school hallways: exploding candy, slippery dips, temporary mutilation capsules and any manner of spell-resistant products that may cause most displeasure. That will be all, school starts tomorrow as you all should know so it's important that we all get a good night's sleep in preparation. Have a great year, everyone…"

The Great Hall was beginning to empty, leaving the brown stools warm from people sitting on them for so long. I kept up with the people from my House, pushing to the front as a boy's voice called, "First years, to the front, please. Come on, then, we haven't got all night to get to the dorm, so hurry, please."

The dark-skinned prefect ("Gregory Bunks, but it's 'Prefect' to you guys") led us from the Great Hall straight to what seemed to be a thousand flights of stairs, reaching so high up this part of the castle that the square of ceiling up at the very top seemed to be nothing but a tiny blot of paint on a huge portrait. As we climbed them they kept vibrating as if they were floating, and a couple of times they changed direction while we were on them so that we had to grab the railing for balance before waiting for them to switch back to where we wanted to go. Numerous paintings, tapestries and cupboards lined the walls of corridors we went through, and I remembered Pop telling me about the secret passageways to elsewhere.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes of walking, we reached a corridor somewhere high up in the castle, probably in a tower. There on the wall hung a large portrait – in the light of the torches on the walls we could see the moving picture of a very fat woman wearing a frilly pink dress. Her painted eyes scanned over us slowly, checking out her new charges of the tower.

"Password?" she asked.

"_Canis Shubunkin," _Greg recited, and the portrait swung open slowly. Stepping through it, we came into a large room filled with cushiony chairs, with a fireplace, and two staircases at opposite sides of the room. There was nobody else there, the older students must've been told to stay out until the new kids had settled in properly for the night.

"Right, this is the Gryffindor common room. The password to get in here is easy enough, it just means 'dog goldfish' in old folk's language. Boys' headquarters are up the left staircase, that's the dorms and the bathrooms, and girls' are up the right. Alright, now, everyone okay with everything? Nobody homesick already? It's okay to say if you are."

A girl next to me – a tall, thin girl with short brown hair – burst out into tears and raised her hand.

Greg nodded and said, "Melody, huh? Alright, everybody else to bed now, I hope you all have a fantastic first day tomorrow. You'll find your luggage upstairs, okay? Goodnight!"

I was going up the stairs, downhearted, when I heard a voiceless sound in my head.

Goodnight, Kora. I looked around at the other staircase just in time to see Jim wave and disappear into his tower.

I went to bed a little more lightened than before. It was a circular dorm, with wooden four poster beds with curtain hangings, and wardrobes just at your bedside, and your luggage at the foot of everything. Not surprisingly, Torque was sitting on the window sill glaring at me – it had probably sparked up too much of a commotion to be kept with the owls in the Owlery. I found my bed second from the window, and fixed a roost for Torque on the top of my wardrobe before changing and getting into bed.

I knew what the other girls in the room were thinking as they lay shivering with fright in their beds. _Oh, God, I'm in the same room as Kora Rastrick! Better keep my wand nearby, just in case she tries to kill me or anything…gasp! Did I pack my garlic? How am I supposed to ward her off _now_?_

Something like that, anyway. I drew the curtains around my bed and hugged myself as tightly as I could. The same feelings that had plagued me in the Great Hall had returned – I found myself wanting Pop, that somehow he would magically appear in the castle and take me away…it was just a thought. Moreover, I wondered how he was coping without me. He had at least one more week till he had to go back to work. How was he cooking for himself? Could he do his own laundry? In all the years that I had been with him I had never seen him do these things. Perhaps we had a house elf and I didn't know about it. I knew that back in our house he was worrying about me too, and that made me feel a tiny bit better. I stared up at the ceiling of my four poster bed and tried to look forward to the following day.


	8. Early morning stroll

Chapter Eight: Early Morning Stroll

I knew from the moment I got up that it was going to be a long day. That was because I had gotten up, paranoid like, at just past four thirty a.m. in the morning. However as it was so early, I didn't feel tired. The events of the night – traveling, eating and hiking through the castle – seemed to have been nonexistent. Seeing that there was no way I'd have a chance of falling asleep again, I got up very quietly, dressed into my black robes, tucked my wand into my pocket and made my way down into the common room.

It was still very dark. Outside I couldn't see a thing. Without really thinking, I went over to the dorm entrance and pushed it open.

It was darker out in the corridor, but torches on the wall only just allowed me to see where I was going.

Exploring the school on my own while everyone else was asleep was fun. There was nobody to stare at me, like they had the instant my face had welded into their minds as I stepped up to be Sorted the night before. There weren't even any of the House ghosts. I remembered Gryffindor's own Nearly Headless Nick, and how he had preferred to patrol the table rather than sit beside me, which had been the only seat available on the whole table. The corridors were cold, but I figured that nothing else could be colder than the treatment I was about to get that day onwards so I ignored it.

High and proud, the corridors, hallways and rooms of the castle were my only friends. I walked through them with a sort of respect, like they were watching me and approving of how I was keeping so quiet so not to disturb them. I had always liked wandering through places like this, there was no wonder Pop had given me the Imperceptible Cloak.

I opened every door in a corridor that was unlocked and looked around the room before moving on to the next hall. Some rooms turned out to be classrooms, with desks strictly in line and various scripts and posters hanging on the walls. Others were merely broom closets that stunk strongly of polish and mothballs.

With Pop's stories in mind, I looked behind every tapestry, inside every cupboard and under every rug to find his so-called secret passageways. I only found one – a small wooden door behind the cape of a large statue of Gregory the Smarmy on the sixth floor. I didn't dare go inside; who knew where it would take me?

It only seemed a short time when daybreak appeared. I was walking past a lengthy arch window when the burst of early morning sunlight flooded over me through it. It had to be around six a.m. Perhaps it wasn't so early to go down to breakfast? At least there wouldn't be too many people.

I was going down the stairs when the first person I saw that morning popped up. And I mean literally popped up floating in midair. It was a ghost, a little green man that reminded me of St Patrick of the Irish tradition, wearing a suit and a large, lurid bow tie.

"Well well well!" he cackled in a nasal voice. "A wee little firstie wandering the halls so early in the morning? You's is up to something, you is!"

He was hiding something behind his back. Judging by the smell it emitted, it wasn't something good, and I had the feeling that this ghost wasn't an ordinary ghost.

I didn't know what to do. The first thing that entered my head was self-defence, and I pulled my wand out and held it in front of me.

"You'd better go on your way, spirit," I said, trying to sound brave. It wasn't often that ghosts confronted me – this was the first time and I didn't know what to expect.

The ghost cackled again, and teased me. "Ooh, thinks she's so tough, she does…and who has seen so far an ickle firstie who can do as much as one spell? I thinks she deserves a well-earned introduction _Peeves_' way!"

And giggling hysterically, he exploded a bag of flour in the air.

"Immobilus!" said a loud, yet calm, voice, and the many particles of flour froze in the air. The ghost cursed, and with a _pop! _he was gone. Albus Dumbledore waved his hand, and the flour disappeared altogether. He looked down at me with a smile, and for a split second I felt the same thing I had felt at the Sorting. I felt…like…I wanted to seize the old man, and tear him to shreds! But why? What was going on?

"Good morning, Ms Rastrick."

"Good morning, Headmaster."

I waited for the accusations, the possible detention. Nobody was supposed to go around Hogwarts before and after school hours.

"I suppose you're as much as an early bird as I am, then?"

"Not really, sir. I was just excited about my first day." It was a lie, but it was better than saying that I dreaded the whole ordeal and I didn't want to show my face to anyone ever when it was over. I was surprised though. He should've given me punishment by now.

Dumbledore nodded and looked up at where the ghost had disappeared. "That was Peeves. He's our school poltergeist, as his troublesome qualities show. Everybody else complains to me every year about him, but I just can't find it in my heart to expel him. He makes trouble worthwhile here, you see." He smiled again. "I doubt that any student has ever been able to ward Peeves off with a wand. You're welcome to try, however. Have a nice day."

And he was off, heading down the corridor and humming a little tune to himself. That was it, no lecture about going around the halls, no telling off, no nothing. It was strange. And my feelings towards him…they were even stranger.


	9. Classes 1st September

Chapter Nine:Classes 1st of September

My classes were somewhat enjoyable, despite the whispering and passing of notes amongst the students in my class. McGonagall had come around our table at breakfast handing out timetables, and mine looked like this.

Monday: Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, History, Defence Against the Dark Arts

Tuesday: Herbiology, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Astrology

Wednesday: Double History, Double Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions

Thursday: Double Potions, Double Transfiguration, Herbiology

Friday: Double Herbiology, Double Charms, History

I had each of my subjects four times a week. It looked like fun.

That morning after breakfast, I packed my bag with parchment, textbooks, inkwells and quills and hightailed it downstairs for my first class.

Potions was taught under the school in the dungeons, and it was taught by the teacher dressed all in black. The class had been chattering quite happily while we lined up outside of dungeon one, but silence fell as the teacher strode past us and into the open door without a word. Uncertain, those at the front of the line looked in after him for instructions. They got them, alright.

"What are you all standing idle for?" the teacher barked. "When I enter a classroom I expect everybody to be sitting at their benches with all their required working utensils out ready to start doing work. You will need this particular skill for the rest of your Potions classes here at Hogwarts!"

His name was Professor Snape. All throughout the lesson he was bad-tempered, scolding people for dropping quills, talking quietly while taking notes, every single minor thing that happened that couldn't have possibly made any teacher go nuts. I didn't let him faze me, no matter how many times he looked my way and sneered. His subject was an interesting one, and one that I had quite been looking forward to.

That lesson we took down notes on the effects of several magical plants after being mixed into potions, as well as unicorn horn and porcupine quills. Everything was all too hard to remember, and there were distractions in the room. It was like the apothecary in Diagon Alley, with jars of pickled animals and books on potion-making and spare cauldrons sitting around the place.

Snape started us on a simple potion called the Aristotle of Aristoteles, an ancient Greek remedy for the common allergy. We had to pair up for this. Jim was in my class, I had noticed, and he had been eyeing me before someone tapped him on the shoulder and achieved his nod of approval. Once more, the look of apology.

Seeing as everybody in Gryffindor bustled to get someone other than me, I turned to the Slytherins.

We shared the class as a symbiotic period. All of them, boys and girls, all sported mean grins at some points, and they shrieked and yelled a lot while the potions were bubbling. Whilst Snape seemed to enjoy snapping at people from my House, he didn't do much to calm down the Slytherins. I figured that he had to be the Head teacher of their House like McGonagall was Head of ours. I couldn't help that. I had to ask someone to pair with me.

"Need a partner, partner?"

It was too late…weirdly. Someone had beaten me to asking. It was a boy about my height, with sleek brown hair swept coolly around his head, and gray amber eyes. They were cold, though, and resembled the reflection off a hard, glass marble. The green serpent for Slytherin was emblazoned on the front of his robes.

"Alright," I said, sounding hesitant without intending to. The slight falter in my voice made this Slytherin laugh.

"It's okay, Dolly Kora," he said, patting my back and earning the stares of every Gryffindor in the dungeon. "I won't hurt you. Working together on this? It's an honour."

__

Yeah, I thought, _before you burst up into flames._

"I'm Frances. Frances Avery." "Avery? You mean, your dad Avery, who works in the Department of Mysteries?" "Pleased to be your acquaintance, Dolly Kora. I'm glad that you have heard of my family name." "Why do you call me 'Dolly'?" "Please, it's a word that means good. To me you are an appealing, inane young woman. Allow me to call you this." "Sure thing…Frances."

I wasn't stupid. I knew for a fact that 'dolly' actually meant 'pretty but silly' young woman, and he had underestimated me by thinking that I didn't. Well, hardy ha ha, stranger, I've found your dumb alibi already. I'd better not trust any of these Slytherins. I should've realized a long time ago, when I first looked at his eyes. They practically dripped untrustworthiness.

The potion actually turned out good. It was the right colour anyway, and Snape seemed satisfied as he came along to check us. Frances was a smart little prick, managing to talk and keep track of time even as he and I worked.

"So. The infamous Kora Rastrick. I don't know if you noticed, but many of the kids here weren't exactly expecting you to show up this year."

"Why not?" Maybe I sounded just a bit severe.

"Well, it's all about the reputation thing. You're not exactly popular, are you?"

"You shouldn't use the word 'exactly' two times in a row," I said for the sake of it.

"Tell me, how do you feel about all this? I'm sure that coming into Hogwarts had never been one of your plans, given the special family tradition."

"Family tradition? Is that what you call it?"

"I could call it 'curse' if you prefer it that way. It's the correct term, no?"

I just shrugged. "Whatever. Frances." He was smooth-spoken, and had no problem with speaking his mind. But he was a pain in the neck, why the heck was he even talking to me?

We were quiet as we were taking a sample for Snape in a flask. I went up to give it to him – he said lowly without looking up, "Enjoy your first potion lesson, Ms Rastrick?"

Unsure of what to say, I simply said, "Yes, sir, I did. It was interesting."

He just gave a slight nod. I returned to my seat next to Frances, who said in my ear, "Did you know that Snape hates doing this subject?"

I usually took gossip as a form of insult towards the person being gossiped about, but just this once I countered, "Why does he hate it?" "Rumours go that he wants to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. It's because of his past, before he became a teacher. He used to _do _the Dark Arts for a living." "What –?"

Frances' tone was dramatic. "He used to be a supporter of…_You-Know-Who._"

You-Know-Who, or He Who Must Not Be Named. To Pop and I, he was notoriously known as Yak-Kindling-Warthog, and He Who Marvels Nigh Bottom Nearby (basically he who finds a nearby butt awesome). I don't take it seriously now when anyone mentions the Dark Lord's nicknames, so I always laugh.

I laughed. Frances' eyes widened slightly in surprise. "You dare mock him?"

I wiped the smile off my face. "No, it's just that – "

"Unbelievable." Frances was about to split his face from his revelation. "Dolly Kora laughs at the concept of the most feared Dark wizard for a century."

"Well, he's gone now, isn't he?" I pointed out. "There's no reason to be scared. Harry Potter took care of him."

For the first time, Frances took on a face other than his own fake one. This time, he looked threatening and menacing. When he spoke, he sounded nowhere near smooth-spoken, although he still spoke his mind.

"Harry Potter," he positively snarled. "What magic had he done to repel the Dark Lord? Nothing. Why is he so special?"

"Well, you see, Frances, that's the whole point. No one knows how he survived the attack, so it must've been something real big that he's hiding from everybody…or he doesn't know about it himself." Your identity is over, Avery. I know who you are now. Stay the hell away from me.

At that point the bell went. Frances jerked, and his face melted back to the same silky face that had greeted me before. "It was a pleasure to work with you, Dolly Kora." "Believe me, Frances, it was interesting."

I looked at my timetable – Charms. That was on the third floor, no problems. Professor Flitwick, a tiny man who barely came up to my waist, took my all-Gryffindor class through levitating spells, and as a joke I levitated Jim's hat off his head. When he had realized what was happening, he sent the same spell (Wingardium Leviosa!) back at my books. They flew into the air and knocked the poor teacher down.

"Well!" he wheezed as he got back up. "That was quite impressive, Mr Rickman…Ms Rastrick…ten points to Gryffindor." My first contribution to my House. Maybe my last, even.

We had a half hour break after that. Jim was taken away by a wild group of noisy Gryffindors, and I didn't see him that whole break. I spent it down at the lake under a growing birch tree there, doing as much as I could of Snape's potions homework.

After break, we had Transfiguration with McGonagall, who was as patient as she was strict. A lot of the class time was spent on theory, but before the Gryffindors could start moaning in boredom she introduced us to the magic of it all. We regretted it, though. Even changing a pin into a match was hard, although I aced mine on first go. It had to be beginner's luck.

Then we had History. Here, our teacher was Professor Binns, and he was a ghost. Apparently he didn't know that he was dead, and he gave the slowest, most boring talks I had ever heard. Still, it was a good thing because I was able to write down his speech almost word for word in my notebook, serving as study notes for later. We all gave a sigh of relief when the bell rang, which was the signal for lunch.

Defence Against the Dark Arts was our last class for that day. As I walked into the classroom, I noted that the thin, dully-dressed man standing at the blackboard was the nervous wizard I had noticed at the Sorting. Up close, he didn't seem nervous at all. If anything, he was pleasant, and lively.

"So!" He beamed at us. "I'm _hoping _that these are my new first years, am I right?"

A few people nodded, others chimed in a "Yes."

"Great! I haven't gotten the wrong timetable after all. If I had, the deputy principal would've been at my throat!" Seeing a few alarmed faces, he added, "But we all know that Professor McGonagall isn't like that…the majority of the time…

"Yes! Defence Against the Dark Arts. I'm your teacher now and forever, amen, my name is Professor Aidan Duckett. The first things you should know about this class is that…_it is not about the Dark Arts. _Whatever the older students have been saying, they're pulling your leg. This subject is about the precautions that have to be taken when around or facing the Dark Arts, hence the name. Yes we do learn all sorts about the Underworld if need so called but we also learn a fair few interesting gimmicks to foil them. Therefore DADA, as it is abbreviated, is a fun class and there is no doubt that you will want more while you've had a taste of it."

He clapped his hands together. "Alright! We sitting down? Good! First thing on my planner is to have a group discussion for everybody to warm up to everybody. And guess what out topic is? Magical creatures! Yes, it has nothing to do with anything associated with the world such as…the civil murders and torture of innocent witches and wizards…"

He looked right at me when he said it. I sat up, and got the message straight away.

__

You and I are going to clash, Ms Rastrick. Oh, yes, we are.

"But hey, we're not doing that sort of stuff till our third term! So let's all make the best of it. Who knows how to coax Bowtruckles from gorging the eyes out of you?"

School was over, we had all had dinner. In the common room everybody was up and talking about the events of their day, whether it was good or bad. Jim was with them, no doubt. As I dutifully continued my homework, I heard an especially loud gasp from the common room. Maybe Jim had told them how he had the ability to talk through thoughts. I shook my head – no longer was I feeling special now that he had told everybody else. Oh well, it didn't matter. He wasn't friends with me anymore anyway.

I sat on my bed in the empty dorm, Torque gently preening herself at my headrest, my homework spread out in front of me. My first day had gone fine…no one had really disturbed me. For that I was grateful.


	10. The Close Encounter

Chapter Ten:The Close Encounter

The week went on like so. Hogwarts was just only a little difficult on the side of schoolwork – it was getting around the place that was hard. Everywhere I went people would recognize me, and while most just stared others were louder.

"Spotted any victims yet, oh, sinister one?" someone called from a group of fifth years. I forced myself not to look at them in case I did something drastic, and walked on. I had to get to my Herbiology class. Someone else tried to chock a spitball at me and missed – another person raised his wand from one end of the Entrance Hall at me.

__

Crash! My bag had split right up the middle. All my books, my Herbiology gloves, inkwells and parchment were on the floor behind me, slowly absorbing ink from the smashed glass.

They laughed. Those who were brave enough laughed first, then everybody else thought it was alright and they began to laugh as well. Suddenly the whole entrance hall was laughing, even the people on the stairwells.

I didn't do anything. I _couldn't _do anything. If I did my situation would've just gotten worse. I was lucky that Greg was around. He yelled for people to be on their way, that Moose McMillan had just earned himself a detention and twenty points had been taken from Ravenclaw, then came over to me and helped pick up my stuff.

"So sorry about that, Moose has always been a brilliant idiot. That's why they put him in Ravenclaw, see, it's full of them. Here, give me your bag –" He tapped it with his wand. "_Reparo!_" The rip sealed itself. "There, good as new. Now be on your way before someone else tries to sabotage you." "Thanks, Prefect." "You're very welcome."

He ought to be Head Boy, I couldn't help wishing. So decent, at least…

Herbiology was held in one of the three Greenhouses outside of Hogwarts. Our teacher was a stout little witch with extremely dirty robes and horrible fingernails – almost like a medieval witch except she was as nice as nice can get. Her name was Professor Sprout, and we had the subject with her House, Hufflepuff.

We managed to cover care of Asphodel root, the kind of plants Pop kept in his garden, and scheduled next lesson on Thursday afternoon for theory on aquatic plants. After that we had to go up to the castle and wash the dirt off ourselves – who ever knew that gardening could be so messy.

Only one more time that week did Jim catch my eye again in the courtyard, but it was in vain. He was only flurried away once more in the crowd, this time to see a display of Quidditch by the older years at the school Quidditch pitch. By then I had left all notion of the sport behind, so I stayed in the library and tried to practice my transfiguration.

The quill stayed still on the table. I touched it lightly with the tip of my wand and muttered, _"Relinquish."_ It shuddered, then swiftly melted into the shape and colour of a fountain pen. Smiling to myself, I touched it again. _"Vedicrement." _The pen bloated back into the form of the quill, and I gave myself a silent congratulations.

Now that I had a wand, I was discovering more and more about my ability with magic. From when I was little, I had always known that I had magic blood in me. It first showed when I was battling Pop over baby food and the can just flipped itself out of the window and onto the road. Pop had never questioned what I could do, simply because if anybody did magic when they were under-aged they would get into trouble with the Ministry of Magic, even if they were family members or the future kid king of Egypt.

Here, at school, I had my opportunities to discover this ancient art of witchcraft and wizardry, and I found that I was good at it. My Transfiguration class was still stuck on switching erasers. The largest I had done had been my _"One Thousand Herbs and Fungi"_ textbook, at great risk of losing it when I transfigured it into a dictionary.

I was just getting out my DADA work to start the foot-long essay on the significance of troll security in the wizarding world when Frances sat opposite me.

"Hello, Dolly Kora."

It was lunchtime. What the heck was he doing inside while everybody else was outside enjoying their sun and freedom? Stalking me, that was what. Stalking me and trying to annoy the hell out of me with his 'logical' good-witch, bad-witch talks. Save it, Avery.

"Hi, Frances. Fancy seeing you in the library."

He flashed a look of arrogance and gloat. "I appreciate your opinion of me as a regular freshman jock, Dolly Kora. However, not all popular wise guys like me like to hang around outside all the time. I was simply passing through the library for my favourite Quidditch records book when I spotted you, and so I decided to come say hello."

"How nice of you, Frances." Jerk. "You really should get back outside, though. You need all that fresh air. You know, to relax from the stress school is causing you."

He made a dismissive sound. "Stress? Well, excuse me, Dolly Kora, but I don't experience that sort of thing. Stress is a waste of time, just like how sleeping is. The famous alchemist Quinn-Mill of Bridge used to sleep for only three hours, then he would go back to his studies straight away. Kind of like you, Dolly."

"How would you know that? You're not in my House, let alone in my dorm. You wouldn't know how many hours I sleep."

He leaned across the table and said in a low voice, "One doesn't need to be there when one's got evidence." "What evidence?" "Whenever I see you around you would always look tired and beaten. Like a person who's stayed up too late, and gotten up too early."

At that moment I saw Jim's thin frame come through the library entrance out the corner of my eye. I looked at him, and he saw me, and he stared. He was acknowledging Frances, almost sprawled across the table from leaning so far, and without a single thought to me he turned around and marched out of the library again.

The wall was up. I shouldn't be expecting anything from him in a long while.

Frances had seen Jim. He turned back to me and said, "I know you know my friend Jim Rickman. I've seen you two going around Diagon Alley the other day. Close, you two, were you?"

I felt a bit ticked off. "Yeah, I guess we were, on accord that he'd been the only person in a millennia who had bothered to hang around with me at that time." "Don't fall for it. I mean it, Dolly. You shouldn't hang around with people like him. In Potions when everybody was pairing up – where was he that time? Over the other side of the room with Cindy Maple, I recall." I wanted to say no, it hadn't been his fault, but he went on.

" In fact, you shouldn't be hanging around with _anybody._ You know it for yourself, there's no one you can commit to in this world. You've seen it, you've experienced it. Nobody…except me. I'll be your friend when no one else would."

Frances seemed awfully charismatic. I feared for the day I gave in and said yes to him, but that day was yet to come. I still hated his Avery guts like mad.

"That's very nice, Frances. But for now, let's just be hello-buddies, okay?"

However dumb and bright I thought he was, he still got me thinking. Maybe he was right. The absence of everybody was just probably doing me good. I could concentrate on school better…get good grades…make Pop happy. He would like that.

Frances nodded a good bye and left me to ponder. He was fake through and through, but he wasn't a fool. Maybe I could even like Frances Avery…like when hell freezes over.


	11. A Friendly Introduction

Chapter Eleven: A Friendly Introduction 

_Dear Pop,_

_ I MISS YOU. Those were the first things I wanted to tell you. Anyway it¡¯s been almost a month now since I¡¯ve seen you. How are you? I¡¯m sorry I left writing for so long, I know I did say that I was going to write a week after I got used to the school but¡­well, I guess time got the better of me._

_You were right. Hogwarts is a wonderful place. The teachers are real nice ¨C well, some of them, maybe even all of them. Maybe they¡¯re just acting. I haven¡¯t found any secret passageways yet, but there was this thing on the sixth floor behind this huge statue of Gregory the Smarmy. I was too scared to go inside and see where it went._

_I¡¯ve done school long enough to know which one¡¯s my favourite subject. Potions! It stinks badly sometimes, because of the potions, but it¡¯s interesting and I¡¯ve learned a lot of things, like when you mix elodea with boomslang scrapings you get a Wiggenweld Potion, and when you use boomslang skin you get something that cures boils. Yeah, I like Potions. The teacher seems a bit strange. No, not strange, just ill-tempered and seems as if he hates teaching. Someone has already said that he preferred teaching DADA._

_Speaking of Defence Against the Dark Arts, that¡¯s a fun subject as well. We¡¯re learning heaps of spells and goblin rights and how to distinguish talking ferrets from normal ferrets (well, who wouldn¡¯t know how to do that?)._

_Anyway, overall I¡¯m having a brilliant time. It¡¯s the weekend, so nothing much is happening. People are practicing Quidditch out at the pitch, so the majority of us have gone to watch them. I can¡¯t believe how they can still play in this weather. Now that it¡¯s nearing October, things are getting chilly and I¡¯ll need to dig out my jumpers from my trunk. I hope things are going alright for you back home and in the Ministry. I worry about you, too, you know._

_I¡¯ll see you, then._

_Love, Kora_

¡°Ms Rastrick! When I am speaking I expect everybody to stop writing and listen to what I say. You could miss some valuable information if you don¡¯t follow instructions.¡±

I had been taking notes of what he had been saying about haddocks and was going to object. But then Duckett gave me an awesome glare, and I closed my mouth, fuming.

¡°Right. As I was saying, in 1786 a famous geographer Niles Poppleton considered haddocks half humans. His theory lives on to this day, and haddocks are currently in this category in the Department of ¨C Ms Rastrick, what did I just say about writing while I am talking?¡±

This time I ignored his glare. ¡°Sir, I was taking notes of what you were saying ¨C¡±

¡°Five points from Gryffindor,¡± he said curtly, folding his arms. ¡°And if young Ms Rastrick continues to disrupt the class I¡¯m afraid it would be another five.¡±

A few people turned around to stare accusingly at me. I just gave Duckett the coldest stare I could muster.

I had had enough. In all my other classes the teachers had seen no problem in my taking notes. Duckett was just pure evil. I wondered if it was too early to change from this subject to something else, or whether I even could. First years usually had to sit through everything at first before finally choosing their own subjects later on.

The double was almost agonizing. Duckett continued to teach, unaware that I was secretly hating him with every word he said. This whole term he had been nasty, looking past me as I put my hand up to answer a question, grading me down because my essay on illegal breeding was half a foot longer than it should¡¯ve been (Hayley Bedneckinson¡¯s had been two feet longer and he had given her an Outstanding). So unfair. I still liked the subject, like I had told Pop, but the teacher was just terrible.

I was glad when lunch came. For some reason I couldn¡¯t wait till the end of the school day. Only Potions left and we would be free. I¡¯d be able to go upstairs and do my homework. Yes, boring, but what else could I do?

I entered the Great Hall which was already half full with students. On the tables sat bowls of mashed potato and pumpkin, platters of Caesar salad, and kebab sticks every few feet. I sat down and began to eat rather abundantly. You needed a full stomach before going into any of Snape¡¯s classes, otherwise he would¡¯ve made you weak with frustration if he decided that he¡¯d pick on you for that day. Wait, did I do the foot long he had set us for the potion effect of red anemone and salamander clippings? Oh, yes I ¨C

Kora!! Can you hear me?? He-e-e-elp!!!! 

¡°What?¡± I exclaimed loudly. Several people turned to look at me, but I didn¡¯t care. Jim had just spoken from somewhere. His thoughts were very faint, but I could pick up the panic, and terror. Something was happening to him, and it wasn¡¯t a joke.

¡°What?¡± I said again, foolishly because there was no way he¡¯d be able to hear me. He wasn¡¯t in the Hall, he was obviously somewhere far aw¨C

Kora!! Kora, quick, they¡¯ve got me, they¡¯ve ¨C quick, you¡¯ve gotta get here _now!_

¡°Where are you?¡± I hissed. He seemed to realize that I needed directions.

Third floor, third floor!! Charms corridor, sixth door to the right! Hurry! 

I bolted from the Great Hall as fast as I could. Skipping the stairs, I ran straight into the dungeons, narrowly missing Snape himself, and ran deep into the dark stony halls till I came to an ancient statue of a goblin that only came up to my waist.

Spending a month at Hogwarts had given me plenty of exploring time. After I had sent my letter off to Pop I had found this secret elevator that led up to the third floor, which was opened by just slipping past the goblin and entering a small shaft.

In no time at all I was facing the Charms classroom from the bottom of an old witch¡¯s portrait. I took off, listening as Jim bellowed sudden shock into my mind.

I found the sixth door. I flung it open, my wand already protectively in front of me.

¡°A boys¡¯ bathroom?¡± I breathed. A dumb question: what the hell was Jim doing here?

There was no one that I could see in the grayish gloom, but there was a second part to the bathroom that was hidden from direct view. It had to be where the stalls were. Someone was laughing ¨C no, several people were laughing, and jeering and hooting. Water was splashing somewhere with great big plunges. I could see the droplets, and how wet the floor was getting.

I gulped, and stepped into the bathroom. I kept walking till I had gotten where the boys were fooling around.

The first thing I saw was an open stall. The wooden door was wide open, and inside it three boys were squished in together with their backs facing me. Looking down, I saw a fourth pair of legs, this one sprawled out and kicking on the floor through theirs. The toilet was flushing loudly ¨C it didn¡¯t take long for me to realize what they were doing.

Unbelievable anger seized me at once. I couldn¡¯t remember the last time I had felt so mad. I rose my wand higher, and shouted, ¡°_Leave him alone!¡±_

The laughing stopped. The three boys turned to face me, apparently stunned to hear a girl¡¯s voice in the boys¡¯ bathroom. With slight surprise, I recognized Frances at the front.

¡°How _dare _you?¡± I practically yelled. ¡°How dare you do that to him, what has he ever done to you?¡±

Frances barked a laugh and, turning to look at his pug friends, he said, ¡°Well, it¡¯s more the fact that he¡¯d stepped foot in this bathroom while we were doing our business. Not that you¡¯d understand, being a girl in somewhere you shouldn¡¯t have been in the first place. Isn¡¯t that right, boys?¡±

His friends ¨C thin, smooth-looking first years just like he was ¨C nodded and sneered. Behind them, Jim was sitting limply, his dark hair plastered onto his head and dripping water all down his clothes. He was staring at me, his face pale and shaking, his eyes barely reflecting through the light in the room.

I could feel my wand getting hotter in my hand with all my anger. I pointed it at Frances, and I threatened, ¡°If you ever do anything to him again, I¡¯ll make sure that you¡¯ve got the Head of my House to speak to. You hear me?¡±

¡°Dolly Kora, I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re not at your best today. We¡¯re still friends, aren¡¯t we?¡±

¡°We were _never _friends, Frances Avery. And if you talk to me again I will hex you, even in front of everybody if I have to. Just leave us alone.¡±

He shook his head, and I detected the look he had had on his face when he had been talking about Harry Potter. ¡°Fine. Fine then. Just bear in mind, Dolly Kora. I could have given you everything. Anything you wanted. I had power, and you turned away from it. Instead, you chose to stick up for poor, pathetic idiots such as this.¡±

He beckoned to his friends, and they followed him to the exit. The door slammed.

I let my arm drop to my side and tried to catch my breath. Feeling angry seemed to have taken the wind out of me. Jim was still sitting on the floor inside the stall, blinking and generally looking lost. I held out my hand, and he took it and got onto his feet.

Thanks. He said nothing else. It was almost as if he was ashamed of saying anything more. I didn¡¯t mind, though. He had called for me when he was in trouble, and that meant something at least.

¡°Don¡¯t you carry your wand around with you or something?¡± I asked.

He shook his head. Just today I left it in my bag. I didn¡¯t expect anything to happen. 

I looked down at his soggy clothes. ¡°So. What¡¯s it like to have your head stuck down a toilet?¡±

He looked at me sheepishly. Grotty. But fun. 

I slugged him on the shoulder, and told him to go up to the dorm and get some dry robes.

After lunch we had Potions. Filing into the classroom, I picked my usual spot in the middle benches of the classroom. Jim scared me by setting his books right next to mine. I couldn¡¯t help staring. He looked at me and said nothing, but a faint smile came through.

Cindy Maple was staring as well, like she couldn¡¯t believe that she had just lost her Potions partner. The rest of Gryffindor had noticed, and Frances was talking to his friends in a low voice, but I didn¡¯t care. Jim had finally faced his peers, and was my friend once more.


	12. October Blues

Chapter Twelve: October Blues

_Dear Kora,_

_ I MISS YOU TOO. In your letter you forgot to mention how you were doing friend wise. I do hope you¡¯ve found someone. You¡¯re right, it has been a month. So convenient, how time flies._

_Nothing much has been happening. I haven¡¯t been spending whole days at the Ministry now, I think I¡¯ve gone back to my normal timetable at last. It¡¯s bad in a way because I have to come home in the end and you¡¯re not there. I have to force myself to cook most nights now! Except sometimes I don¡¯t bother and I order something from Mrs Mews¡¯ Pies or something like that. It saves time, though, especially if the Department calls for an emergency etc._

_Well I hope that you continue to have fun. It¡¯s funny how you like Potions, it used to be my favourite subject as well next to DADA. When I see you this Christmas we¡¯ll do a few potions of something. I have tons of old books here that I haven¡¯t touched in years._

_Take care now, Corporal._

_Lot of love, Pop_

¡°And Pippa has the Quaffle! There she goes, past Kev, pass to Lester, he passes to Miriam, pass back to Lester ¨Coh, there he goes, down by a Bludger, and Ravenclaw has the Quaffle! And how¡¯s our Seeker going, not so good by the looks of it, there ought to be the replacement soon ¨C and Ravenclaw scores! Some great teamwork by Yasmine Hoffs and Jasmine Hoffs, always knew those twins were fit for Chasers first time I saw them. The Quaffle is back in Hufflepuff¡¯s possession ¨C¡±

I was watching the game forty feet from the ground only mildly interested. Jim, however, was following the game on tenterhooks, his mouth slightly open and looking quite deranged. As it was nearing Halloween, Hagrid¡¯s garden was highly visible even from this distance, made so by the vivid orange pumpkins he had nurtured especially for the Halloween feast.

¡°What! Cody¡¯s up, apparently he¡¯s just woken up from his concussion. Ah well, waste not, want not. There he goes, flying as high as ever, looking for the Snitch like he had never been hit down with a Bludger in the first place¡­and one of the twins has the Quaffle again, they¡¯re going through the Hufflepuffs like a rock through feathers, pass to Jasmine, pass to Yasmine, pass to Kev, he moves up, he throws ¨C nice block by Keeper Robert Adams, nice block indeed¡­¡±

I was watching Cody, the Ravenclaw Seeker, circling above the pitch on his nicely presented Cleansweep Seven. ¡°Hey, Jim, you want to be a Seeker, don¡¯t you?¡±

Do I ever. ¡°Well, shouldn¡¯t you be watching the Seekers instead of the Chasers and the rest?¡± They haven¡¯t found the Snitch yet, and both Houses¡¯ scores are over a hundred. I don¡¯t think those guys will be finding anything for a while. 

It was true. Still, the guy could fly. Cody was doing some sort of loop, and he had gone into a dive. Jim groaned. Now he¡¯s spotted it. ¡°Oh, come on, Jim, the Snitch is supposed to be hard to find.¡±

A short time later, Cody dashed up from the ground, a tiny glint of gold clenched in his hand. The whole Ravenclaw side cheered, and the commentator announced the winning score three hundred and twenty over Hufflepuff¡¯s one hundred and sixty.

Jim sighed. I remember the last Quidditch World Cup. Belgium totally lost against France, were you there at that time? ¡°Yeah, Pop complained about how the game went for three and a half days. We hadn¡¯t packed enough clothes for that length of time and he ended up sending me to go to a Muggle Laundromat.¡± Do you want to hang around the lake or something? ¡°Yeah, okay.¡±

¡°Who are you talking to?¡± Casey Hodgekin demanded. I looked at the Gryffindor girl sitting in front of me and said in-a-matter-of-factly, ¡°I was talking to Jim, Casey.¡±

¡°How can you be making up what he says? You¡¯re a weirdo.¡±

She left, shaking her head, and I looked at Jim questioningly. He was laughing in my head. She didn¡¯t know I was talking to you. ¡°What? I thought everybody knew how you talked.¡± No. No one. Maybe you. They all think I¡¯m completely cut off from communication. 

I thought about it. ¡°Gee. You shut up for a whole month? How boring would have been.¡± It wasn¡¯t too bad. Kind of like before I met you. 

He had a point. I guess you had to do the same, huh? ¡°Yeah¡­not really. I had dumb people like Francis Avery pestering me in every Potions class.¡± I feel sorry for you. ¡°Not for long you¡¯re not. I think we got rid of him for good.¡±

How wrong I was.

We went down to the lake. A few other people were sitting around on the bank or in the bushes, talking enthusiastically about the game. I picked my budding birch tree and we sat near that, wallowing in the sunlight.

Jim was a great friend, as it turned out. He had lost the paleness that had made his face look so empty, and he didn¡¯t blush so much. He now made it a habit of sitting with me everywhere, sticking with me as a partner when need be¡­basically he opened up and left behind the shy person he had used to be. He was usually the one to start conversations now, anyway.

Once I had picked up a feeling he had emitted, probably without realizing that he had done so. The feeling didn¡¯t have words, but I could read it easily enough. He felt that the two of us were the same, and I had the notion that he was right.

We have school tomorrow. 

¡°Yeah, well¡­I kind of like school in a way.¡±

Yeah, so do I, but it¡¯s just that we have Potions first up. 

¡°Potions? What, don¡¯t you like it?¡±

I don¡¯t like Professor Snape. He creeps me out big time. 

¡°He creeps everybody out. But he¡¯s not that bad, really. Not if you get into his good books not that I¡¯m in them, of course. Despite everything, he¡¯s alright. It¡¯s Professor Duckett that I despise.¡±

Jim turned his head on the grass and looked at me peculiarly. You like him, don¡¯t you? 

I gave him a bombshell look. ¡°In case you haven¡¯t heard, I just said that I hated him.¡±

No, not Duckett. I meant Snape. You like him. He was beginning to smile.

It was true, and it was a shocker that Jim had picked up on it so quickly. I couldn¡¯t believe that he suspected me of liking Snape even when I was acting that I truly didn¡¯t like him.

Then something happened that wasn¡¯t so good, but at least it had saved me from any further questions from Jim.

¡°Talking to yourself, Dolly Kora?¡± I recognized the voice. I had had to endure it every time I was in the Potions classroom. I wasted no time getting up and facing Frances Avery and his two friends.

¡°If you don¡¯t mind, Frances, can you get out of here? You¡¯re kinda disturbing us.¡±

¡°Oh.¡± He didn¡¯t look so smart and charming anymore (well, he did) now that he had that permanent look of scorn on his face. The real Frances was out ¨C I had unleashed him.

¡°I was¡­disturbing something, was I?¡± His friends sniggered.

¡°For your information, Jim and I are just friends,¡± I said defensively.

¡°Yes, Kora, I did mean that, why, did you think I was implying something else?¡±

¡°You were and you know it. Just go, Frances. No one needs you here.¡±

¡°Yes you do. I¡¯ve simply come along to ask you one more time. Join me and my merry men and there¡¯s no doubt that you¡¯ll gain more benefit than hanging around with Courage the cowardly dog here.¡± Jim mumbled something about not having a wand at the time.

¡°And such merry men you are,¡± I said. ¡°Guys, the answer is no, I¡¯m not going to become friends with you. I¡¯d rather hang around with the good people, thanks.¡±

¡°This?¡± Frances was looking at Jim. ¡°You know what, Dolly Kora? Good people are only good because they¡¯re weak, and they don¡¯t want anything to come along and disrupt them in case it uncovers this weakness. Your friend Jim is a fraud. The poor wanker can¡¯t even talk.¡±

¡°Don¡¯t you call Jim that! I told you already, if you try anything ¨C¡± ¡°Do you really expect us to listen to you? Listen to yourself, Kora. Doesn¡¯t that sound just a little bogus? It¡¯s more of a case of ¡®taking things for granted¡¯, isn¡¯t it?¡±

These guys are so annoying! ¡°Look ¨C Frances ¨C either you get off our backs, or I challenge you to a duel.¡±

¡°Oooh¡­¡± The two hooligans behind Frances poked each other and laughed. Frances wasn¡¯t laughing though. He looked into my eyes, and I knew that what he was going to say wasn¡¯t going to be good.

¡°Just like the old days, huh, Kora?¡± he said quietly. ¡°I¡¯ll bet your father liked to do this all the time with his pitiful little victims. That¡¯s what I like about him, you know. He squashes them. He squashes them with so much as a wave of his magic wand. His personality shows through you, Kora.¡±

I stared at him. He was lying, of course. He wouldn¡¯t have known how Richard took care of things, he was trying to spite me.

¡°Tell me, Kora, is the curse real? As much as you two are similar, is it real?¡±

Then something huge flew past me ¨C a bright beam of golden light moving so fast that I almost fell over from the force of it traveling by. It hit Frances right in the middle, and with an ¡°Oof!¡± he flew backwards onto the grass some twenty feet away.

I looked to the side at Jim, who was standing beside me with his wand pointed right at where Frances had been standing, and he was breathing hard.

I know that you¡¯re not proud of it, Kora. No idiot¡¯s going to call you your father¡¯s daughter¡­Not while I¡¯m around. 

¡°Jim! You shouldn¡¯t have done that!¡± He was rubbishing you! ¡°I know he was!¡±

Frances was pretty ticked off. He shook off his pals and stormed back, his sleek hair now astray, and his eyes wide with hatred for my friend.

¡°You wanted a fight, huh, Jim boy? You wanted a fight? Why the hell didn¡¯t you say so? I would¡¯ve welcomed it at ease!¡±

He threw his arm over his shoulder, and brought the wand down hard. The same beam of light shot out and hit Jim, who flew all the way backwards landing with a loud crunch at the water¡¯s edge. By then the people around the lake had stopped to watch, intrigued by the duel between one first year and another. They weren¡¯t really concerned ¨C almost none of us freshmen knew a spell bad enough to hurt anybody.

Jim got up quite quickly. In my head he cried, Flipendo! A blue whirlwind shot from his wand. Frances copped it full on, and it carried him up several feet before dumping him back on the ground.

I knew better. Jim and I had practiced random spells from my book, so we knew some spells that others like Frances didn¡¯t. I had to stop them either before Jim did something unacceptable, or a teacher came out into the grounds.

I pulled out my own wand. ¡°Finite Incantatem!¡±

The wands stopped working, only for a while. Jim looked up at me. What the ¨C ow! 

Frances had become more of an idiot than he already was, and had aimed his next spell at Jim¡¯s hand. Jim jerked in pain, and his wand went flying out of his hand.

It landed far out in the lake, and sank as we watched.

Jim lunged at Frances. You ¨C I pulled him back, and hissed, ¡°Leave him! We¡¯ll get it back later! Now that he¡¯s won he won¡¯t get us into trouble.¡±

Damn that to hell, I wanted to finish this, Kora ¨C! ¡°That¡¯s enough, Jim!¡±

Frances was looking smug. It was a terrible sacrifice that I had done, but it was probably worth it. He dusted himself off and said, ¡°Nice one, losers. Next time, don¡¯t bite off more than you can chew. It¡¯s not a very good habit.¡±

They left, and Jim sat on the bank looking at the ripples that his wand had created.

¡°Are you alright?¡± He didn¡¯t answer for a while, but eventually he said dully, How the hell are we going to get my wand back? ¡°Easy.¡±

He looked at me. So¡­how are we getting it, oh, person who made me lose a duel? 

I groaned inwardly. ¡°We¡¯ll just have to do a bit of borrowing, that¡¯s all. You know¡­borrowing without asking. Snape¡¯s storeroom, tomorrow during class.¡±

He looked incredulous. What! In broad daylight? We¡¯re stealing some potion that¡¯s going to get my wand back? It¡¯d better work, Kora, otherwise I¡¯d have to go through the week without my wand. And most of our classes are wand-essential! 

_¡°Don¡¯t worry so much, Jim. I¡¯ve got something that can help us. Snape won¡¯t even suspect that I¡¯ve got anything like it.¡±_


	13. The Lake

Chapter Thirteen: The Lake

¡°I do hope that the majority of you dim-minded people in my class have remembered to do that summary on powdered eye of newt and essence of Murtlap. If you haven¡¯t, then don¡¯t be surprised to see a ¡®Fail¡¯ in the report card in your parents¡¯ hands.¡±

I could hear Snape¡¯s harsh words even from outside the classroom, where I was standing in the dark stone hallway. In my hands I held my Imperceptible Cloak.

Inside, I heard shuffling as someone got up, and footsteps as that someone walked up to the front of the class. There was silence, then, ¡°What¡¯s this? Ah, a note. I¡¯m afraid I¡¯d forgotten that you have not the sense to speak, unfortunately enough.¡± A pause as he read it. ¡°She¡¯s sick, is she, in the hospital wing? Well she¡¯d better get down here fast, I believe that Madame Pomfrey¡¯s healing abilities are very quick at getting truancy pupils back into class.¡±

Ha! Do you still like him now, Kora? He thinks you¡¯re wagging Potions. 

I couldn¡¯t answer back. Instead I waited.

It was ten minutes before Snape started them on our usual practical potion making. I waited some more for Jim¡¯s signal. It came shortly.

Okay, he¡¯s heading for the storerooms to get newt eyes for me. Get in now! 

I pulled on the Cloak, making sure that the hood was completely over my head, then pushed open the dungeon door.

A few people turned to see who had come in. I was delighted to see each one of them turn back to their cauldrons ¨C the Cloak had worked. I had been standing right there in front of them, and yet they had acted as if I was simply one of them. No gawking , no nothing. I could see that Jim was looking for me. It was weird because he was looking right at me at some points but his eyes always seemed to slide away, like the Cloak was repelling them.

I couldn¡¯t waste my time hanging around waiting for him to notice me. I followed Snape through the door in the dungeon that led to where all his spare ingredients were kept.

It was as gloomy as the classroom itself. Dark and stinking of who knows what, the storerooms seemed to stretch on forever. I let Snape go on his way, and began to search the shelves for what I was looking for.

Lace wings¡­boomslang¡­wood nymphs¡­unicorn horn, porcupine quills, Grindylow fingernails, wolfbane, aconite¡­Snape had a lot of stuff to keep himself amused. Finally I found a row of small jars marked ¡®Gillyweed¡¯, filled with greenish, slimy looking stuff. I had just taken two jars off the dusty shelf when Snape returned. With a shock I froze, but he rose on tiptoes and merely squeezed past me, even muttering a ¡°¡¯scuse me,¡± as he went. I was amazed. This Cloak certainly was useful.

When I went back out, Jim didn¡¯t notice. Only when I sat next to him and slipped the Cloak off did he wake up to my presence. Hello! When did you get here? ¡°A long time ago, Jim. Listen, I¡¯ve got the stuff. Today, after school?¡± Uh, won¡¯t people notice us diving into the lake? After school, people will be coming up to the castle from the Greenhouses. ¡°They won¡¯t notice if we went in the other end of the lake. I think we got enough for about an hour and a bit, that gives us a lot of time to reach the middle wherever Frances had knocked it in ¨C¡± Shh! Snape! 

I whipped my head up and found myself staring up at the pale sinister face surrounded by his soot black hair. Snape said in his most probing voice, ¡°And when did you come in, Ms Rastrick? I didn¡¯t hear the door open.¡±

I managed a shrug. ¡°I guess I came in while you were in the storerooms, sir.¡±

He narrowed his eyes, and I felt dislike the same time I felt my crush on him bloom.

¡°I suppose you have been cured of your sudden ailment?¡± ¡°Oh, yes, that¡¯s why I came down here, I wouldn¡¯t miss Potions for anything, sir.¡±

He just looked at me even more suspiciously, but then turned away and walked off.

I sighed in relief. ¡°Imagine the death sentence for stealing from the Potions storeroom.¡±

Yeah. Gran¡¯s told me that it might be a month¡¯s worth of detentions, or suspension. ¡°Your gran talked to you about stealing at Hogwarts?¡± Hey, she wanted to make sure that I didn¡¯t get into trouble. ¡°And here you are aiding me to rob the Potions teacher.¡±

¡°Who are you talking to?¡± cried Casey Hodgekin.

The lake was cold. I felt the tingle the moment I stuck my feet in the water.

¡°Ooh! I don¡¯t how we¡¯re going to pull this off, Jim.¡± Well we¡¯d better! Seeing as we¡¯d already stolen Gillyweed, we can¡¯t look back now. ¡°I was joking, Jim. Look ¨C¡± I unscrewed my jar of Gillyweed and hoiked out the contents into my hand. Seeing the string of goo it left hanging on the mouth of the jar, I felt slightly put off. Still, I forced the whole fistful into my mouth and chewed on the rubber like thing. It felt terrible, but I managed to swallow. Jim was staring like he couldn¡¯t believe what I had done. I did a fake bow and said, ¡°There, now you do it.¡± At least, I tried to say it. All of a sudden my throat closed up, and I was dry retching like a madman. I was choking, that was what. As quick as I could help it I tossed myself under the murky lake water, submerging my head totally. Only then did I find myself able to breathe again.

What! Hey, you¡¯ve got gills! I stuck my head above the water and, without a breath, said, ¡°Well what do you think the book told us? Come on ¨C¡± I dove in, delighting in my new ability. Jim joined me a short while later, and we began the swim to the bottom of the lake.

It seemed impossible that we were doing this. Just a jump back in time I had been quietly residing at home with my Pop without any idea that I was even going to Hogwarts School. Now I was swimming around with my best friend in the school¡¯s resident lake after classes, looking for a wand that had dropped into it the day before. We stuck close together, because the deeper we went the darker it became. All of a sudden our navigation depended entirely on the light of my wand, which I had switched on with a bubbly, ¡°Lumos!¡± Talking did not go so well underwater but thoughts did, and Jim was trying his best to cheer himself up.

How about that Quidditch match yesterday, eh? It was pretty good, Hufflepuff totally lost but it was a good score. It was better than what Belgium ended up with. You know, what both Houses need are new Seekers. Cody and that other guy just took too long to find the Snitch. I was unable to comment and say that Cody had been wonderful and that Jim was just jealous. Do you have any idea where we¡¯re ¨C 

Jim¡¯s fear hit me at the exact same moment that his struck himself, so I gave a huge jump in the water and snapped my eyes around for what he had seen.

I didn¡¯t need to. In that moment of fright Jim had already projected it into my mind. I saw for a split second a green, pebbly-skinned creature with long thin hands, then I saw the real thing in the light of my wand.

A Grindylow! Jim exclaimed. I remembered seeing Grindylow fingers inside Snape¡¯s storerooms, and shivered underwater. Gran has one in the pond in our back yard! Did that mean he was fond of it or something? Because I was about to blast it away before it tried to hurt us. I rose my wand and when Jim didn¡¯t object, I forced through the bubbles, ¡°Flipendo!¡±

A sort of whirlpool created around the creature and, shrieking, it was swept out of our sight. But the whirlpool had spread to our spot of water as well, and I grabbed Jim before he could get washed away from me. Together, we rushed through the bubbles and foam that the whirlpool left, and a short time after that I felt my shoulder hit the sandy bottom of the lake silently. Jim was beside himself. Are you crazy? Using that spell in water? Didn¡¯t you realize what was going to happen? We could¡¯ve lost each other! 

I just beckoned for him to look at where I had landed, and in the light of my wand he stretched his face into a huge smile. Hey, we found it! He pulled out his wand from where it had been half buried in the sand, and tucked it into his jeans. I¡¯d just like to say, he told it, that was a great battle you put up to that Avery git. I¡¯ll never lose you again. 

I wasn¡¯t listening to his thoughts. I was staring at a large lingering shape lying on the lake floor in the nearby darkness. I nudged Jim, and he was silent when he saw it. Together, we approached it as slowly as we could in the water.

What the hell is that doing in the middle of the lake? 

We dragged the ancient trunk up the bank at the far side of the lake. It was nearing late evening but I didn¡¯t care. We had something that was so old that it was covered in the carvings of the earliest runes of wizard kind. The trunk was thicker and larger than the average trunk you took to Hogwarts, and although it was wrought from wood and covered in moss it hadn¡¯t decayed from the water. Judging from the weight of it as we tried to haul it into the bushes away from view, it had something sealed inside it.

Why the hell would someone dump something like this? Jim was cautious. He had been all against me for pulling the thing up, but gave in at the end out of his own curiosity. I just shrugged and put the side of my face against the old wood, as if listening for something inside it.

¡°Whatever this has in it, Jim, somebody must¡¯ve thrown it into the lake because he had wanted to get rid of it. Maybe there¡¯s something tremendously evil in here.¡±

Oh, it¡¯s always something evil that has to do with it, isn¡¯t there? Jim quickly pulled up the wall between us. I was sure that he hadn¡¯t meant for that thought to reach me, but I didn¡¯t mind. I did always think that everything had something evil to do with it, and I had a feeling that I was right with this one. I ran my finger over the large keyhole and positively hissed with disappointment. ¡°The key¡¯s not here.¡± Yeah! And that¡¯s a good thing! Say there was a terrible curse that would be unleashed on the first person ¨C no, the first two people to open this trunk, like they have them in Egypt. Then we¡¯d be in trouble. Honestly, Kora, we shouldn¡¯t have brought it up here. If there is something bad in there, we shouldn¡¯t be meddling with it. 

_Jim was right. But I couldn¡¯t just leave it undiscovered. Maybe later if I found the key, I could come back for it. ¡°Help me move it more into the bushes, Jim.¡± You¡¯re not planning to go further with this, are you? ¡°Maybe later. I don¡¯t want anyone taking this up to the teachers.¡± Alright. But we have to go up to the Great Hall right after this, okay? ¡°Yes, Jim. Help me, will you?¡± Intriguing, very intriguing._


	14. Torque and the Owlery

Chapter Fourteen: Torque and the Owlery

Breakfast was pierced by a very loud screech. Everybody in the hall looked up at the ceiling to see what the noise was, but I had an inkling that it was someone I knew. The owls were all streaming in that morning to deliver mail, but there was a disturbance in the flock. Amongst the browns, whites, grays and blacks I caught a flash of rusty red. The missile was shooting around the owls, clearly bothered, taking on the acoustics of the room with a second scream.

¡°Torque,¡± I breathed, and stood up in my seat holding up my arm. Torque saw me immediately, and dove down. She landed heavily on my arm, and I winced when her talons dug into my skin, but at least she wasn¡¯t panicking anymore. I quickly sat down, taking myself away from the stares of the teachers and students. Jim looked at Torque and said, She doesn¡¯t go well with owls, does she? ¡°Nope, not too well at all.¡±

I fed her a bit of my bacon strip, then untied the envelope that she carried on her leg. ¡°Cool. My Pop sent me a letter.¡± I opened it straight away. It was a short one, saying just a few sentences.

Dear Kora,

Can¡¯t write long. Ministry has just gotten very busy indeed. Just writing to say that there has been a disturbance at Azkaban.

I gulped. Azkaban was the wizard prison, a place so far away from anything that if anybody escaped they¡¯d have a hard time getting away without dying first. That is, if anybody did manage to escape. Nobody had ever been able to do it before.

No one got out, but the cells that were interfered with were mostly the ones containing Richard¡¯s old cronies. You know what I mean. They¡¯re contemplating whether there is going to be an attack soon, and if he knows that you¡¯re at Hogwarts. So, be careful, alright? I¡¯ll see you this Christmas.

Love, Pop

I nodded, mostly to myself, and put the letter away in my pocket. What was that all about? You looked sort of strange for a bit. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s nothing, Jim.¡±

Right after that, a fourth year from the Ravenclaw table stood up, holding the Daily Prophet in his hand. ¡°Azkaban¡¯s been broken into!¡± A flurry of voices followed as the students began to discuss it amongst themselves, and quite a few heads looked my way.

Jim understood. Ignore them, Kora. It has nothing to do with you. ¡°What? It has everything to do with me. I¡¯m the curse, remember?¡± He shook his head, but said nothing. Instead, he commented on Torque.

She needs to learn how to deal with owls, this bird. She can¡¯t spend the rest of the year hanging out in your dorm. We can help her. ¡°How?¡±

His idea was risky, but it could just work. School passed by, and we found Torque and took her up to the Owlery.

It was a big tower. Straw, owl droppings and tiny rats¡¯ bones covered the floor, and all the way up the sides and piercing the middle were wooden rafters and places that the owls could nest during the day. Arch windows were everywhere here for the owls¡¯ convenience. Torque noticed all the smell the owls had left behind and protested slightly.

¡°No, Torque,¡± I scolded, and set her on one of the lower rafters. ¡°They¡¯ve gone out for the night, okay? They won¡¯t be back till the morning. You¡¯ve got this whole lovely tower to yourself. See? You come in at night while they¡¯re out, then when they come back in for the day you¡¯ll be out already. You know owls, Torque.¡±

She was still worried, shifting from one foot to the other. When we tried to leave she leapt into the air and tried to follow us.

This isn¡¯t going so well, Jim said. ¡°What do you suggest, then?¡±

His next idea was crazy, but it could just work. That night when everybody was asleep, I quietly gathered my extra quilt and took Torque out. We went back up to the Owlery (¡°Lumos.¡±) where Jim was waiting, and I set Torque into a roost. She flapped her wings and soared up to the highest one, already content now that we were going to keep her company.

I sighed. ¡°I hope you¡¯ve found someplace that isn¡¯t layered with poo and skeletons.¡±

Are you kidding? Am I a wizard or what? I¡¯ve found a nice big roost up there where that window is. Look. Climbing up to that spot was pretty easy. The rafters served as good footholds and at some points, steps. The roost definitely was big ¨C it looked like a nest fit for a Hippogriff. I told Jim this, and he joked, The school probably wouldn¡¯t realize if a Hippogriff did come to spend the night. Mind you, there¡¯d be heap of a lot of owls missing the next day. He waved his wand over the roundish collection of twigs and straw. Scourgify! The dried owl excrements disappeared from sight, and Jim suddenly looked awkward. Go on. Ladies first. ¡°What? Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re just going to sit on the windowsill, Jim. I¡¯ll budge over, and we can share. Sharing is caring, you know.¡±

He turned very red, but he did it anyway. Lucky our invented Hippogriff had widened the nest ¨C we fit perfectly. With a sigh, I looked out the window that was in line with our little roost and noted the stars that were outside.

¡°You¡¯re pretty good at finding good camping spots, Jim.¡± I am? ¡°You should be the camp coordinator for the Quidditch World Cup next time round.¡±

Torque cooed somewhere above us. I yawned, and said with my eyes closed, ¡°We shouldn¡¯t have any problem getting up tomorrow morning. The sun should come right through this window. It¡¯ll be annoying, but¡­¡± Yeah¡­we¡¯ll be up early alright. Then maybe we can explore the school before breakfast. I used to do that at the beginning of the year. ¡°No kidding. So did I. I wonder why we never saw each other.¡± I felt clouds of guilt come off him, and asked, ¡°You saw me a few times, didn¡¯t you?¡± Yeah, he admitted. But I could never really bring myself to come up to you. Stupid, really. I wasted so much time without you. 

I was on the brink of sleep, but I kept it in for just a little while longer. ¡°You think so?¡±

Yeah. I¡¯m glad we got the chance to meet again. You¡¯re like the friend I never had. 

Nice, I thought with an inward yawn, and fell asleep.

I dreamed of waking up on a dark chateau out in the middle of the ocean. I looked behind me and saw that the rocky island was made up of cliffs, stretching higher and higher until I could hardly see the top of them. Then I realized that the cliffs were actually towers, and that I was staring at a huge castle. Bats circled it, just like how haunted houses go, but the bats were different. There were thousands, and they created a creepy circle around the topmost tower of the whole thing. From that tower, someone was screaming in my head, and I knew that it was Jim up there. I woke up with a fright, and was immensely relieved to find the sun peeking up just over the horizon, reassuring me that I was going to be seeing the sun again after all, and bathing light on Jim who was still asleep beside me.

_I had never seen Azkaban, but I felt like I just had, and it made me shudder when I thought of the prisoners concealed inside it. I hoped that never in my life did I have to go and see the place, and with a shock I found myself rooting for those who had been imprisoned for continuing the acts of my father¡­I had wanted them to be free._


	15. Halloween Spirit

Chapter Fifteen: Halloween Spirit

The Great Hall looked dazzling. Carved, gruesome-looking pumpkins floated above the tables, candles flickering inside them and highlighting the faces that had been cut into the sides. Live bats circled above and swooped down on the students, shrieking ( That¡¯ll be Snape if he¡¯s an Animagus ), and skeletons of Clabberts ¨C little monkeylike creatures that had glowing lights at the end of their tails ¨C had been borrowed from the DADA department and bewitched to walk around and hand out Halloween cards or sweets up and down the tables. They were really quite annoying, as they pranced about the place how monkeys tended to, sometimes landing in a bowl of chips or crashing a jug of juice if they were drunk enough, and shrieking as loudly as the bats when they were. We got our little sense of victory when Frances looked over, stunned, as to how Jim had gotten his wand back when it had been sunk far out in the lake. Jim waved it in the air and laughed. I bet he¡¯s real ticked off now. He thought he had me. 

By the time the feast was over, I was chock full of cake, sausage, pumpkin pie, juice and crisps. Jim was still hungry, the thin frame that he was, and asked me if I could go down to the kitchen with him.

¡°The kitchen? How did you manage to find out where the kitchen was?¡± Gran told me. I¡¯ve never actually been there, but I can remember what she¡¯s said about it. She says that a ton of house elves runs it, and that they do all the cleaning in the castle and they¡¯ve been the ones putting fire in the fireplaces for us. They work in secret, see. Anyway, it¡¯s in the dungeons. Come on. Get a cup of tea with me or something. I groaned. Like I said, I was chock full. But I went with him like a friend would.

We went through the familiar route into the dungeons. We passed my short cut to the third floor, and then into the more unfamiliar routes where the senior Potions classes usually headed. Then we went beyond even that, past a vanishing door that had the Slytherin symbol on it ( Who wouldn¡¯t expect to find something like that in this dreary old place? ) and past at least a dozen suits of armour lining the passageways. I was just about to ask Jim about his memory when he stopped in front of a large portrait.

This must be it, I guess. Gran told me about the portrait with all the fruit in it. I¡¯ve just got to tickle the pear¡­ He tickled the pear, and it wiggled in the canvas and a door opened nearby, bringing with its opening a smell of soapsuds. We stepped through it, and entered one part of Hogwarts that we had never seen before.

The kitchen was enormous. It was as big as the Great Hall. Right in the center it had four long tables and one overlooking them all, just like the Great Hall. All around were sinks, giant cupboards, shelves, piles pf dirty plates and cutlery, piles of clean plates and cutlery, a whole lot of soapsuds, and house elves.

I had seen house elves before, once when I had accompanied Pop to a Ministry member¡¯s house. I was five then, and currently the house elves were about as large and frightening like I remembered them as they were paid to do work. The short, brownish, long-nosed, large-eared forms saw us, and immediately rushed forward to greet us even though their hands were covered in suds from the dishwashing.

¡°Young miss! Young master!¡± They seemed happy to see us. ¡°How joyful for you to have come to us to settle your hungers! What would young miss and young master like? Pork? Eggnog? Souffl¨¦, Danish, chocolate slice, more dessert??¡±

Er, some tea and biscuits would be nice, if it¡¯s not a problem, Jim said, uncertain of these house elves¡¯ behavior towards us.

The crowd of eager servants drew in an audible breath of awe, and one of them said in his squeaky voice, ¡°Young master can speak through minds! We respect you most highly for your disability to speak, sir!¡± They bowed so low that they were all in danger of falling head over heels onto the floor.

¡°These guys know their history well enough,¡± I said. ¡°What, you¡¯re a king now, are you?¡± Jim grinned, a bit red from the praise he was getting.

¡°Tea and biscuits!¡± bellowed the elves to those who were soapsuds-free. Three seconds later about ten of them were bustling a single tray under our noses, and a few were taking it in turns to make our tea.

Lucky I didn¡¯t say ¡®hurry¡¯, Jim said, impressed at the speed of the service. It took us a while to persuade the elves that we were fine with just our tea and biscuits, and slightly put out they returned to their washing and drying and putting away.

Jim sipped his tea and sighed. It¡¯s convenient having these happy little guys. You can come here at any time at all and they¡¯d just be begging to serve you with anything. ¡°Yeah¡­¡± I was watching the elves bustle about, remembering what I had thought earlier. ¡°You know, one day someone who comes to this school is going to bring up the subject of house elves not getting paid to do work, and they¡¯re going to put on a rally about it or something. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s fair.¡± Don¡¯t worry too much over it, Kora. Look, they¡¯re practically chatting happily. Maybe it¡¯s not so good with house elves outside, but here at Hogwarts they look more than content enough. He was right. I dropped the thought, and we sat there silently for a while.

Time flew by. All of a sudden my watch was reading eleven p.m., although it had only felt like half an hour has passed. Jim yawned and stood up. I guess we have to get up to the dorm. They might go crazy wondering where we are. We said goodnight to the elves and, with difficulty, left the kitchen.

It was now dark on the third floor when we got out of the short cut. It was as if we hadn¡¯t even left the dungeons. We lit our wands and started to find our way to the staircase up to our tower, but on the way Jim suddenly pushed me aside so that I whammed inconveniently into the wall of the corridor.

¡°Ow! Jim, do you mind watching where you¡¯re going ¨C¡± There¡¯s someone coming. ¡°Who cares, Jim, it¡¯s not like we¡¯re going to get in trouble.¡± Oh, yes it is, we¡¯re not exactly supposed to be out after ten and we were certainly not supposed to be in the kitchens. Hogwarts can be dangerous at night. ¡°That¡¯s why teachers patrol it, isn¡¯t it?¡±

I shut up anyway. Jim was looking around the corner of the corridor seriously, so I peered around him just the same.

Someone definitely was coming, I could see movement from within one of the corridors nearby. Jim didn¡¯t surprise me by saying, Hey, there are two people coming. ¡°Yeah, well, even teachers can be afraid of the dark, Jim. Maybe one needs the other to hold his hand or something.¡± I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it was Snape. His thought was dry, and I backed him up immediately. ¡°Don¡¯t be silly, he¡¯s an adult.¡±

We could hear them talking. It was so quiet on that floor that we could¡¯ve heard pretty much from there way up to the fifth floor where the Muggle Studies rooms were. Judging from the absence of Snape¡¯s dull voice, I knew that he wasn¡¯t there. Actually, neither people coming up didn¡¯t sound like any of the teachers I knew.

It became apparent why that was a few seconds later. All we needed to see were the pearly white bodies, the transparent mid sections, and those century-old ruffled robes...

They were ghosts. One was the Hufflepuff ghost, The Fat Friar, and the other was a famous little ghost that haunted the deepest darkest dungeons in the whole of Hogwarts. She was a depressed little old lady that everybody called Howling Helen, and sometimes we would hear her howling and bawling rattling the pipes coming up from where she was.

Whoa, Jim said. Ghosts were common enough around old, dreary castles, but it was what they were talking about that really pulled us in.

¡°¨C not if we can help it,¡± the Fat Friar was saying. ¡°I mean, it does help that we stay away from the Baron when he¡¯s in one of his moods.¡± Howling Helen sniffed in a miserable sort of way, and said back in a dull, scratchy voice from all her howling, ¡°Yes...it really reminds you of the time that boy nearly banished him from the castle. Imagine that! Being chased away from your own home by an outsider...¡± ¡°Yes, hmm...¡± The Friar looked thoughtful. It was only when they were passing our corridor when he suddenly said, ¡°That boy...he was that Richard boy, wasn¡¯t he?¡±

My heart got caught somewhere between my throat and my lungs. What were they talking about my father for? Jim had tensed as well ¨C the wall was up so that I couldn¡¯t receive any of what he was thinking, but my shoulder was touching his so I could feel him go rigid just as well.

¡°Yes, now I remember...Rastrick, that¡¯s the name. All those years down in the dungeons...I can hardly remember any of our more brighter students.¡±

¡°Yes, he was very bright, but he was a little on the crazy side of his family. You remember that, don¡¯t you, Helen?¡± ¡°Oh, yes, of course I do. Now that you¡¯ve mentioned it, everything¡¯s coming back to me...oh, how everyone used to hate that poor boy.¡±

The Fat Friar made a rude noise that carried down the whole floor. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t use the word ¡®poor¡¯ to describe him. He was a maniac! Everybody hated him because he was simply...well, no word fits him better than...see, even I can¡¯t find one for the likes of him. All I know is that it was wrong of his father to send him to Hogwarts in the first place.¡± They were getting further away from us. I grabbed Jim by the sleeve and began to pull him forward.

Hey ¨C what are you doing? I hissed, ¡°We¡¯re following them.¡± Why? ¡°I want to hear what they¡¯re saying!¡± We¡¯ve already heard what they¡¯ve got to say, now we¡¯ve got to get back to the dorm before we get in trouble! ¡°I never knew that my father attacked a ghost here. My Pop never told me!¡± He probably didn¡¯t tell you a lot of things! I mean, he probably didn¡¯t tell you for a good reason. Kora! ¡°Shhh!!¡±

I felt obsessed. I had to eavesdrop on their conversation, even if I never did care about Richard in the first place. I just felt like I had to, even if we did get caught. Silently, we crept behind them in the darkness of the corridors. They kept talking, and eventually we could hear them again.

¡°Pity though, isn¡¯t it,¡± Howling Helen was saying, ¡°how he ran away like that in just his first year here? Usually that¡¯s enough to stop any student really from learning anything to do with magic, but...I don¡¯t know how he came to be that powerful in just a short while.¡± ¡°You know those Rastricks, Helen. Once a Rastrick always a Rastrick. That boy was no ordinary boy. I don¡¯t suppose that you know his daughter is currently attending Hogwarts?¡± ¡°Is she really? Well I didn¡¯t know that.¡± ¡°Well, she¡¯s in first year now, just like Richard had been before he ran off. Kora, her name is. Some call her the Curse, because she just might turn out to be one, really, since the Sorting Hat put her in Gryffindor. Frankly, I¡¯m glad that she didn¡¯t turn up in my House, otherwise I would have turned over in my grave!¡± The Fat Friar laughed at his own depressing joke. Howling Helen sniffled. ¡°I suppose the Bloody Baron was happiest to see that boy go.¡± ¡°Of course he was. Mind you, it didn¡¯t show, but one would be happy if one¡¯s would-be assassin banished himself from the castle. I still wonder how he managed to curse a ghost! Makes you feel unsafe in this world, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

_I let them drift off, and looked at Jim. ¡°Right. That was ¨C¡± I didn¡¯t say what I was going to say next. At the moment of looking behind me my throat had clogged up and forced any further words from coming out. Jim was looking back at me with wide eyes, and Snape was behind him, his long silky hands on his shoulders._


	16. The Unfair Treatment

Chapter Sixteen: The Unfair Treatment

The next morning Jim hardly said anything to me. His mind was closed, but I had a feeling that he was more traumatized at being grabbed by the Potions teacher than he was angry with me. It had been the same last night ¨C Jim refused to tell me what had happened, but I felt that I could imagine it out myself. We had been walking a good distance behind the ghosts, and Snape had either been passing by and had seen us, or he had seen us a long time ago and had stealthily followed us to the moment I finally gave up the chase. Either way, Snape ended up clamping Jim in his tracks, and had spoken when I turned with my unfinished sentence.

¡°What are you two doing wandering the halls at night?¡±

Jim was having a near spasm attack. I made a move to bring him back to my side, but Snape said in his hollow voice, ¡°Come any closer and I¡¯ll bite.¡± Ooh, my mind went. Even in this situation I could still feel something towards Snape. There was something incredibly haunting in the way he was standing there in the light of our wands, dressed all in black and looking down at us with an expression that you normally saw on him in his classes. I¡¯d never thought of seeing that same disapproving face out in the hallways, and especially not at the hour before midnight.

¡°Uh, we were, um, we¡­couldn¡¯t sleep.¡± I felt pathetic. ¡°We thought maybe if we took a walk for a while¨C¡± ¡°Surely one of you couldn¡¯t know that the other couldn¡¯t sleep. I understand that students are to sleep in separate towers in the dormitory. The only way for you to have known is if you had been ¨C ¡± He narrowed his eyes, an all too familiar gesture, and said ¡° ¨C sleeping together?¡± He caught me by surprise. At first I thought, How could he have known? No one was there when Jim and I took Torque to the Owlery. Maybe he just had been there, and we hadn¡¯t seen him in the darkness. But then it came into my head that it could have been a coincidence, that he was just playing with me, abusing my close friendship with Jim. The terrible person was using it to his advantage. He knew very well that we were in trouble already and was making me panic by keeping me talking, bringing more lies up.

¡°I¡­went down to the common room and¡­he was there! And he told me that he couldn¡¯t sleep and ¨C¡± ¡°He told you? In case you are not aware, Ms Rastrick, Mr Rickman here does not possess the ability to speak.¡± Frustrated, I said, ¡°He wrote me a note saying that he couldn¡¯t sleep.¡± What are you going to do with us?

Snape acted to my thought, pushing Jim so that he flew at me from the force. ¡°Normally when I catch students after lights out I take them to the Head of their House to settle their punishment. But seeing as Professor McGonagall is away tonight I will take her position tonight. Twenty points each from Gryffindor, and your detentions are this tomorrow at eight o¡¯clock in the chamber behind the Great Hall. I will accompany you back to your dorm, and you¡¯d better make sure that this doesn¡¯t happen again.¡±

And he trailed us all the way up the stairs and through the corridors, and stood outside the Gryffindor corridor watching as we entered the dorm.

Back to that following morning. Jim spoke for the first time that day. Stupid Snape. We¡¯ve already got him for a double today. Who knows how long the detention¡¯s going to be? It¡¯ll be horror. 

I was less affected by our ordeal. Instead I was preoccupied with the thought of where exactly the detention was going to be. I¡¯d never known that there was a chamber behind the Great Hall. It sure didn¡¯t look like it ¨C the wall behind the teachers¡¯ table was flat and doorless. The only thing that was beside the doors to the Great Hall had to be Filch¡¯s office, or a broom cupboard.

Honestly, how can you like a guy like him? For one thing he¡¯s a grown man, and you¡¯re only just twelve. For another, he¡¯s Snape, the horrible Potions teacher! 

¡°Jim,¡± I said exasperatedly. ¡°Some people have different tastes to yours. I find him tough and strict and a bit stringy, but he¡¯s unique, and he¡¯s got a cool head and he¡¯s smart.¡±

Kora, the man doesn¡¯t wash his hair, Jim said wearily.

Snape passed by our table on the way to the exit. As a reminder to our detentions he looked down at us and gave a tiny curl of his lip. Although its intention was to spite me, all it did was make me sigh for him. Jim shook his head and muttered, My friend the teacher molester. ¡°Whatever, Jim. It¡¯s quite healthy to have a crush on someone, even if he was way older than you and was probably more dedicated to his work than the concept of a family.¡± Yeah, who wouldn¡¯t know why Snape never got married? Jim said sarcastically. Let¡¯s go. The sooner we get to class, the sooner we get to detention, and the sooner we can get it over with. 

In Double Potions we spent the better part of two hours trying to put together a difficult potion for stopping a person bleeding, and for keeping open wounds closed. Snape¡¯s idea of a joke at the end was to ask for any volunteers. At least, I had hoped it was a joke. It turned out that he had been serious, because he chose me.

¡°Come on, Ms Rastrick, we don¡¯t have all day. Get up the front now!¡±

I was shaking. I didn¡¯t have any open wounds for him to fix. Even worse, he was going to use the potion that Frances had brewed up. The boy was smirking something horrible. Who knew if he had even done it the right way? There was a possibility, since he was pretty clever, but one mistake and I was going to have to panic.

I stepped up to the front of the class, and stopped a few feet from where he stood in front of his desk. He beckoned. ¡°Closer, will you, I need the table for this.¡± I moved up a bit more till I was facing him. He grabbed me just below the elbow (I felt Jim give a slight jolt) and he moved us sideways so that the whole class could see. Without a word he drew a thin blade out of his robes. There was stinging pain as he quickly sliced at my forearm.

The majority of the class gasped at the sudden action. I just stared as thin, red liquid slithered out of the long cut, dripping from the tips of my fingers as it progressed down my arm. I was aware that I was trying to pull away in my shock, but he was twisting my arm up now, and his grip was tightening. A tiny part of my mind thought, Whoever knew that those pale, fragile hands could be so powerful¡­

Another part thought more violently, How dare he! Physically injure a student like that, and me of all people in this class! This has to be student abuse, it has to be!

Snape was looking at me and muttering. ¡°If you struggle and I let go, you will lose more blood than necessary. Hold still.¡± And he tucked away the blade and reached for the potion that was sitting on the desk. He held it up to me expectantly ¨C I unstopped it for him with my free hand. He then poured the thick, gooey purple onto the length of my cut, and immediately the bleeding stopped in its course. Through the purple film on my skin I saw ¨C and felt ¨C the two sides of the wound join together and close up.

Snape nodded. ¡°Ten points to Slytherin for an impeccable potion on Non-Magical Maladies. Five points to Gryffindor for providing the test subject.¡± He let go at last, and instant numbness overcame my arm from his grip. The bell went, and we packed up in a rush to get out into the sunshine.

Jim was mad beyond belief. His anger pounded in my head like a constant headache as we walked through the courtyard towards the lake. He even refused to put up the wall between us, insisting that it was best that I heard him out. That idiot! Surely he couldn¡¯t be allowed! That was risking your life up there, in front of everybody in the class. I ¨C don¡¯t ¨C be-lieve him!! ¡°Jim,¡± I said gently, ¡°half the people in the class probably would¡¯ve wanted me dead anyway. Don¡¯t make such a fuss over something like this.¡± Kora! You understand that teachers can¡¯t just take students up and cut them open! I swear, we were probably supposed to learn this in our second year or something. Snape was bullying you, and that definitely is rule-breaching. ¡°He¡¯s already had his share of rule-breaching, Jim. He used to be friends with Voldemort.¡± Shhh!! Not out where everybody can hear you! ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with saying the guy¡¯s name out loud.¡± Yeah, apart from his being the most feared Dark Lord of all time! ¡°I thought my father was that,¡± I said fiercely without meaning to. I made it sound like he was accusing him of it when he really didn¡¯t mean anything like that at all. ¡°Look, Snape did what he did. Let¡¯s not cry over spilt milk, okay, Jim? Honestly, I thought we would¡¯ve learned that a long time ago now!¡±

He looked hurt. The wall actually did go up that time, and I felt no more anger from him. It felt good. I practically threw myself down at the lake¡¯s edge and sat there fuming. What had I been angry about? I had no idea. Whatever it was, it felt irrelevant. I was a kid, and I had just been shouting about growing up. I thought of how strange it must¡¯ve sounded to Jim, and felt foolish.

Jim spoke from behind me. I just don¡¯t like seeing people get hurt in front of me, Kora. Especially people I feel close to. I know that Snape has never really done anything to harm you before, but he went too far today. I¡¯m just concerned about his behaviour towards you, that¡¯s all. As a friend. 

_He really was sincere. And I told him that. ¡°You really are sincere, Jim. I really ought to think before I speak, huh?¡± Yeah¡­maybe even before you decide who you put your crushes on. You know, before you and me I actually thought that you had Frances in your sights. I laughed, more in incredulity than anything. ¡°Sit down, we don¡¯t have long to go before the detention.¡±_


	17. Detention in the Great Hall

Chapter Seventeen: The Detention in the North Tower

The day went by pretty slowly. Double Transfiguration saw us going up a step, changing quills to fountain pens, what I had been doing in the library at what seemed like a long time ago. Jim and I completed the transfiguring, then spent our extra few minutes tossing the pens at each other using the simple spell Wingardium Leviosa. McGonagall observed us and asked, ¡°Do you two practice your magic all the time?¡± I answered yes, whenever we could. She thought for a while, then told us that there was a coming wizard¡¯s duel club that we could be a part of. There were age divisions, and we could go against people in other Houses for extra House Points. It sounded interesting. McGonagall said that it was going to be held every Tuesday after school and Saturday as from the first week after the Christmas holidays. The only drawback was that it was supervised and tallied by Snape. Well, she didn¡¯t say that, but that was how Jim put it.

When school ended, Jim and I went to dinner as usual. Apparently Snape hadn¡¯t told anybody about our detentions because pretty much nobody stared at us or made any snide comments. So dinner went by almost normally. At six pm, Jim and I were dueling in the Owlery while Torque snoozed above. Jim did a rather violent spell, and it knocked me right down on the straw-strewn floor. ¡°Jim! Ouch!¡± Oops. Sorry. I guess I was thinking too much about Snape and how bad the detention¡¯s going to be. ¡°Jim, this is the whole point of us dueling right now. We¡¯re not supposed to be thinking about it. And anyway, it won¡¯t be that bad.¡± Jim barked a laugh. Ha! Yeah, and my gran says that detention sees you chained to the wall of a bottomless pit in the Forbidden Forest for four days! While the magical beasts try to gouge you from it! ¡°Jim, the rules ought to have changed by now. You have to agree that your gran¡¯s days have long since been over, and surely they¡¯d be more considerate about punishment now.¡± He didn¡¯t look so sure. He cast another spell, and I crashed into the wall beside me.

The Great Hall looked barren and empty when we entered it. Much of the light was gone, and the only places that were lit up were a few spots along the walls where low-burning torches were held. We reached the front of the room and looked around. There was no sign of Snape, and it was already going towards ten minutes past eight.

Do you think something¡¯s wrong? ¡°It¡¯s Snape. Nothing¡¯s ever wrong. We just must be in the wrong place or something.¡± For the first time I hope not. I don¡¯t want another detention from Snape. I said nothing to that. I didn¡¯t know if I wanted the same thing.

At that moment, something bumped behind us. Jim leapt, and exclaimed, What was that?! It was the wall behind the teachers¡¯ table. A large, rectangular part of it was slowly sliding away, siphoning dust through the still air, with a low rumble to reveal what seemed like an opening to another room. As we stared, Snape¡¯s lean, thin figure came into view. He looked at us through the cloud of dust, and a slight sneer overcame his face.

¡°Late, children?¡±

Well how were we supposed to know there was a secret doorway we had to go through? Jim¡¯s thought to me was annoyed and skeptical.

¡°I think this serves for another detention, don¡¯t you?¡±

Jim¡¯s mouth dropped to the floor. Snape turned and walked into the room out of our sight. I nudged Jim, and we followed him in.

The room was large, and dusty. Everywhere we looked dust coated the surface of this, or dust collected in cracks of that. There was a single wall, or refuge island, in the middle of the room in front of which were ancient-looking stone heads mounted on pedestals. Portraits covered the walls, all showing sleeping figures in dull coloured robes or frozen in time battling ferocious beasts. Not exactly frozen, since nearly every painting or picture in the wizarding world tended to move around a lot, even into others¡¯ frames. The ancient things stretched all the way up to the ceiling, and i wondered how Snape expected us to ¨C

¡°Clean it up,¡± Snape ordered, sweeping his arm over the whole place. ¡°Make sure that it is spotless. Pity, this, that no one has bothered to keep our Hall of Fame tidy for the future generations of the school. Not that,¡± he sneered,¡°any of you dunderheads would want to acknowledge anything as historic as this.¡±

Jim sighed. I began to pull my wand out of my pocket, but Snape glared. ¡°No, Ms Rastrick. Today you will abide by the Muggle ways of cleaning.¡± At his words, a pair of dustpans and brooms appeared at his feet. He began to walk out of the chamber, but he turned at the doorway. ¡°If I hear as much as a magic wave of a wand, you can be assured that you will receive another detention.¡± He stepped out, and the wall slid back behind him.

Jim sighed again, and looked up at the walls. How the hell are we supposed to get up there? 

Progress was slow. Jim frowned the whole time he was pushing the broom across the floor, looking even more depressed as he sneezed in all the dust he brought up. Things were made worse by the portraits themselves. A lot of them groaned and complained when Jim swiped over their faces with his brush. Others were more appreciating, and blessed us for coming along to clean them after such a long while since the last ones. Then they discovered that we were only there because of a detention and they grumbled about insolent students.

I didn¡¯t mind. I ignored the portraits and the stone heads, and whistled as I worked. Jim gave me a horrified look as if he thought ¨C Are you actually enjoying this? ¡°No, Jim. But think of it this way ¨C at least we¡¯re not being dangled above a bottomless pit in the Forbidden Forest.¡± He looked at the wall we had come through and leant onto his broom. Maybe if we just used a tiny bit of magic. He wouldn¡¯t know, would he, if we just used a tiny bit¡­ ¡°Better not risk it, Jim. Look, we¡¯ve still got to do the ceiling.¡± How the hell are we supposed to do that? All we¡¯ve got are dustpans and brooms. I shrugged, just as the doors in the Great Hall opened with a small creak that was deafening in the silent Hall. At first I reckoned that Snape was going for a bathroom break, but then Jim pressed his ear to the wall out of his own boredom and said suddenly, Hey, there¡¯s someone in there with Snape. Interested, I propped my broom against the head of Professor Kipkin of Horkley (¡°Of all the rude things!¡± he cried) and joined Jim at the wall to listen.

It took a few seconds to detect a second voice in the Hall, somewhere just outside the wall. I groaned when I had distinguished the young, lively tones. ¡°It¡¯s Duckett, that idiot. What¡¯s he doing annoying my Snape?¡± I was ready to get back to work when suddenly I got an urge to eavesdrop ¨C my troublesome self had broken to my mind again. I tried to catch the conversation.

Duckett seemed to think that the last thing Snape wanted was to be left alone. I heard the sound of someone patting someone very hard on the shoulder, and Duckett¡¯s voice going, ¡°Well, Severus, fancy finding you here! I guess I don¡¯t have the Hall to myself after all. I¡¯ll just keep you company, shall I? Or are you in one of your self-pity states again?¡±

Snape, to my delight, sounded very annoyed. His voice was definitely lower. ¡°I do not have self-pity states, Aidan. What are you doing here?¡± ¡°Oh, just out for a stroll. Looking around the school actually¡­you¡¯ll never grow out of thinking how magnificent the school is at night, especially the Great Hall. I was thinking of getting supper later on, if you would like to join me. Now what might the Potions master be doing here, my turn to ask.¡± ¡°I am simply here because I have to supervise a detention. Kora Rastrick and Jim Rickman are cleaning up the Hall of Fame this very moment.¡± There was a pause, then Duckett spoke. His tone had gone quieter, and he didn¡¯t sound too cheerful anymore.

¡°From Gryffindor? What have they done?¡± ¡°I caught them walking around on the third floor after lights out, no doubt looking for trouble. Believe me, I gave it to them.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Duckett tsk-tsked. ¡°I was waiting for that moment to happen. Those two did seem to have an aura of dilemma around them, didn¡¯t they?¡± ¡°Yes¡­¡±

Go, Snape, I thought. He didn¡¯t seem too keen on talking about us.

¡°You don¡¯t suppose they were¡­¡± Duckett must have made some sort of obscene gesture, because Snape quickly said in a louder, more incredulous manner, ¡°I doubt it! Aidan, they are only barely in their first year. I don¡¯t know how you could get such ideas ¨C¡± ¡°All in good curiosity, Severus,¡± Duckett said respectively. ¡°The girl¡¯s family is wrong in the head, you know.¡±

Snape sniffed, in what I thought was disapproval. ¡°Indeed. My opinion is that they¡¯re different this once. Kora won¡¯t let us down, I don¡¯t imagine. She¡¯s a brilliant student, quite ¨C¡± ¡°¨C quite like all those before her? Yes, Severus, you never know, she might turn out cursed, just like the fate that lies before her. That girl is not to be trusted. And that young boy Jim¡­who knows what must have lured him to her, after that hustle about his parents and her father.¡± ¡°I do think that their friendship is genuine, Aidan,¡± Snape said sharply, then lowered his voice. ¡°I have them in my classes. I would have noticed if some form of mind-taking was going on, Aidan. You and I both know that.¡± ¡°I have them in my classes as well, Severus, and I say that Jim has been pulled into this too far.¡± ¡°And what do you suggest we do, Aidan, pull these too apart? Kora is bonafide, I say that much. She won¡¯t be causing us any trouble. And Jim¡­do you know what that boy used to do in his spare time a few months before? Shooting down gnats at the lake with his wand, and doing nothing but read in the library. They both still do that now, but at least they have company in each other.¡±

Duckett¡¯s next sentence was pure rubbish. He said quietly, ¡°What would you know about friendships, Severus?¡±

There was silence. Even Jim had a slight look on his face like he couldn¡¯t believe it. We both jumped back as the wall began to crumble to the side once more ¨C by the time Snape had come through it we were back where we had previously been dusting, trying to act as if we hadn¡¯t moved at all. Duckett was gone; behind Snape the doors of the Great Hall were just creaking to a close.

Snape looked over the place with a slight turn of his head. I saw a tiny part of his face twitch, and he said in his dreary old trademark tone, ¡°Your next detention is the Friday of next week. Be sure that you get to the trophy room before eight p.m. Otherwise¡­¡± Yes, Snape, I thought as I looked admiringly at his long black robes. We know what would happen, and I¡¯ll make sure that we¡¯re late.

_ No you won¡¯t, Jim warned me, as if reading my mind._


	18. Christmas in the Valley

Chapter Eighteen: Christmas in the Valley

My eyes greeted the blinding whiteness of the snow-covered hills and fields with welcome. It had started snowing somewhere in the middle of November, but the thrill only just hit me the moment I stepped out of the train and onto the platform. I was home! Not really, but Pop was standing there, and the concept of it all just made me want to cry out in happiness. I ran into his arms, and hugged him like there was no tomorrow, and as if it were my last embrace from him. His warmth was like I was feeling the sun for the very first time, and I never wanted to go back to school ever again nor did I want to let him go.

The first thing he said was, ¡°My little Corporal, I presume?¡± I kissed his clean-shaven cheek, and loved him for all it mattered.

It was Christmas time. School was out for the holiday, and Pop had sent me numerous letters making sure that I was really coming home. It had been only a few months since I had left, but it had felt like an eternity. It was a huge relief to get back into my house, in its familiar plot of grass in its familiar plot of trees, with my familiar bedroom and a kitchen that you didn¡¯t have to sneak down to for so much as a marshmallow to toast. Pop hadn¡¯t changed much, but he looked younger and less tired. He was stoked that I was back. For that afternoon, we did nothing but lie on the carpet together and snuggle. He asked about school. He asked a million questions about school. I answered yes, no, not all the time, yes history was boring, no, Torque didn¡¯t get along with the owls but we had found a way around that¡­he wanted to know all about Jim, and I told him everything I could about my friend. I left out diving around in the lake with him ¨C somehow that¡¯s just not something you could tell your granddad when you¡¯ve just come back from a wizarding school.

He wasn¡¯t too fazed when he heard about Frances. I had told him about the Avery git already but he was curious to know more. He laughed when I described the boy.

¡°Surprising, isn¡¯t it, how he¡¯s so much like his father.¡± ¡°You know him well, Pop?¡± ¡°Know him well? I live next to the guy at the Ministry. Always acting like he knows better. Been in a few disputes with him, your Pop. Avery knows what¡¯s best sometimes, but he doesn¡¯t quite get the gist of how to get it to work.¡±

I said nothing about Snape, our detentions, and the demonstration I had helped him with in that dark Potions class. And Pop wouldn¡¯t have found out if I hadn¡¯t rolled up my sleeves to do the dishes that night after dinner. He came up beside me and playfully launched a tickling attack. I raised my arm to defend myself ¨C he took it firmly and held it up to me in question, suddenly serious and worried at the long, dark scar that stretched from my wrist and up my forearm, almost to my elbow.

¡°Severus Snape did this to you?¡± ¡°Pop, listen, I did say that we were making this Potion ¨C¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care if it was the Clotting Potion, he harmed you and that¡¯s a serious breach of Ministry law!¡± ¡°Then he wouldn¡¯t have done it! But you don¡¯t know Professor Snape, he¡¯s full of logic and reasoning and he knew all sorts of things, Pop ¨C¡± ¡°Kora, I am one of the Heads in the Ministry. I should know what¡¯s wrong and what¡¯s not. Snape may have gotten out of this one, but the next time he harms you I want you to write to me straight away. That¡¯s an order. Don¡¯t you ever hide anything from me, Kora. The detentions I don¡¯t mind, but the thought of an adult taking my little girl and slicing her arm in half ¨C¡± He hugged me for a very long time, and amid my protests he stuck to the fact that I had been mutilated and made me a hot chocolate.

Over the next few days Pop and I played around in the snow surrounding our house. We hiked up the mountains and looked over the valley. He didn¡¯t spend that much time in the Ministry, but there were a few times when he had to go for a few hours. It was in one of those hours when Jim turned up at my door.

¡°Well, hello, Jim. Having a good holiday so far?¡± With my gran, everything¡¯s just as interesting as keeping a pair of goldfish. ¡°You don¡¯t say. Come in.¡±

Jim looked weird bundled up against the cold. With so many sets of clothes on he looked thick and solid, exactly the opposite of what he really was. I made him sit on the couch like a good host, and tried to strike up a conversation. It seemed hard ¨C only a few days and already I was shying up to my friend of several months.

¡°So. How did you find out where I lived?¡± You¡¯re Kora Rastrick. Everybody knows where you live. ¡°Ha ha. What have you been doing?¡± Nothing much. Gran isn¡¯t very active, so I¡¯ve been going around Diagon Alley by myself and trying to stay out of trouble. I¡¯ve seen Frances around a few times but I never exactly went over to say hi, naturally. I threw a snowball at that Slytherin boy Davey Prim once while hiding behind a hedge. I think he knew it was me, though. ¡°Ah. Interesting. You¡¯re in for a beating, that¡¯s for sure. Hey, remember the scar Snape gave me?¡± That bastard. Did your Pop see it? ¡°Yup. And the first thing he thought was that I tried to kill myself. It took me a while to convince him that I did like the school and that it had been Snape and stuff. He was pretty mad, but I got him to do nothing about it.¡± You¡¯re crazy. ¡°I know. Crazy about Snape.¡± You¡¯re crazy. 

And so on and so forth. There wasn¡¯t anything worthy to talk about so we went outside and had a snowball fight. As it got wet and messy by the time we got tired of it, we decided not to do it again and sat on the porch steps instead. We said nothing to each other. This was typical of us¡­sometimes I wondered why I didn¡¯t just murder ourselves on the spot, we were such boring friends.

A while later, Jim put light on the last detention with Snape. That was worse than having to dust statues and portraits. That smell! I think I¡¯ve got wax and elbow grease stuck up my nose permanently. ¡°Yeah, me too, actually. What do you think the teachers do on their holidays, Jim?¡± Gee, I don¡¯t know, Kora, I don¡¯t exactly know these people. I guess they go off to Jamaica and spend time working on tans or something. ¡°Seriously, Jim.¡± I had an obscene picture of Snape shedding his robes and relaxing by a long, white beach while darkened Muggles ran around with beach balls and volleyball nets. It made me laugh to realize that it was Jim¡¯s representation that I was seeing, and Jim looked a little relieved. ¡°What?¡± I¡¯ve never really heard you laugh before. ¡°Are you serious?¡± Yeah¡­you¡¯re too serious most of the time. Too serious! Jim was out of his mind.

Pop came home that night, and fussed about missing Jim earlier. ¡°One day I¡¯ll have to meet him, Kora. I¡¯d like to see the guy who¡¯s put your differences aside. Where does he live?¡± ¡°You know what, Pop? I have no idea.¡± ¡°Strange, this.¡± ¡°Pop, everybody says that our friendship¡¯s strange. Why?¡± ¡°You know what, Kora? I have no idea.¡± I fumed. He tucked me into bed and heaved a great sigh as he sat at my side.

¡°Overall, do you like Hogwarts now?¡± ¡°Yeah¡­I guess it¡¯s alright now that Jim¡¯s come along. He makes it all worthwhile.¡± ¡°How about the teachers? Are you content with them? Snape doesn¡¯t cause you much trouble, does he, aside from cutting you for that potion?¡± ¡°They¡¯re all okay, Pop. No one¡¯s a real bully.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good to hear. Now, you sleep tight. Tomorrow I¡¯m going to work again. If Jim comes by, lock him up till I get back. Okay, darl?¡± ¡°Sure thing, Pop. I¡¯ll put the body-bind hex on him.¡± ¡°You¡¯d better not. I wouldn¡¯t want the Ministry wizards to come flocking at this house demanding as to why you, an under-aged witch, used magic outside of school.¡± He bent over me and planted a nice kiss on my forehead, and at that lingering moment I felt, in an instant, Pop¡¯s life sweep past me. This man, who had been through so much and still going so strong, had the ability to feel and act loving towards his tiny, insignificant granddaughter. I owed him so much.

_He left the room. Up on my wardrobe, Torque cooed and ruffled her feathers. I looked up at the shadows on the ceiling and wondered how I was going to take it when I entered the school again._


	19. Knockturn Alley

Chapter Nineteen: Knockturn Alley

Jim came over again around eleven a.m. the next day. I suggested that instead of staying around the house we went to Diagon Alley, so we did. I went into the fireplace first ¨C I crash-landed at the exit, and Jim did as well. Dusting each other off, we stepped out into the memorable streets that made up the Alley.

It was packed as usual. All the Hogwarts students who had gone home for the holidays like we had were scattered all over the place. I remembered how I had seen them at the beginning of the year shopping for their school stuff, and for the first time I realized that my letter had come a day late to all of theirs. So had Jim¡¯s ¨C we had gone shopping together, I remembered that much. I asked Jim, ¡°Hey, did your letter come in later than everyone else¡¯s?¡± Yeah, why? ¡°I was just wondering. Mine came late as well.¡± It was a mystery, but I wasn¡¯t going to pursue it too far.

We had lunch at the Wimbleton Wasps¡¯ Sanctuary. It was a place around the corner that was kind of like Quality Quidditch Supplies, except it was all about that particular Quidditch team and it had a food bar inside it. It was a weird little place, but it served things like pretzels shaped as Quidditch goalposts and Quaffles, or the names of players in the team. We were sitting there, quite innocently I must say, when I noticed that right across the street from where we were was an entrance into Knockturn Alley.

It wasn¡¯t obvious to the crowd, but I knew it was there because I had spent so much time in Diagon Alley and it had given me time to explore. The brick wall that I was staring at was actually a hidden doorway to the place ¨C all you had to do was tap it with a wand and mutter the incantation, ¡°Inclemence.¡± Then you¡¯d be able to get through. The reason that it was hidden was that most people usually had no business in that part of town, and they weren¡¯t too eager to have any in the future.

I told Jim about it. He refused, naturally.

¡°Come on, Jim! When was the last time you ever did anything fun and risky just for the sake of it?¡± He thought it over ¨C and I could hear it ¨C and he gave in. We waited till the coast was clear before we got up and walked over to it. The bricks looked normal enough, and when you touched it, it felt like normal bricks. But then I did what had to be done, and the whole wall gave a shudder like it was affected by the wind. I reached into it ¨C my hand went in about five inches. I took Jim¡¯s hand, and pulled him through with me.

It was like trying to go through play-doh. After only a few seconds, we reached fresh air all around us again. Behind me Jim gave a gasp.

We weren¡¯t where we had been those few seconds ago. The fresh air was practically dark and damp, but it was dry and it was unbearably itchy to breathe in. We were standing on a street, but the stones set in it were unleveled with each other, chipped, and in some cases missing. The shops in this part of the alley had suspicious dark curtains drawn over them, but I knew that if there hadn¡¯t been there would have been awful things in the window. Gruesome shrunken heads with horrible, twisted expressions. Blood-stained robes, axe heads or knives. Snapped or intact wands that might¡¯ve belonged to old Xavier Rastrick for all I knew. Books about Dark magic, forbidden potions, nasty incantations, banned practices. Skeletons of old Dark witches and wizards, their skulls leering like they were mocking the living. Knockturn Alley was not exactly the kind of place people from Diagon Alley would want to visit, but I found it interesting. This was what people missed when judging the place ¨C there were tons and tons of old history here. The things in the windows had been from centuries ago and they held so much that people weren¡¯t bothering to investigate. If I ever became a person in the Ministry ¨C which was very unlikely ¨C I would excavate the whole place and ship all the stuff to museums and laboratories to be rated. But then that would have been unfair for the inhabitants of Knockturn Alley.

Speaking of the inhabitants¡­in Diagon Alley everywhere you looked people chatted happily amongst each other and wore bright robes and in general were happy. Here, everyone was alienated. They wore long dark robes, sometimes very shabby. They didn¡¯t usually stay away from clueless kids wandering in from any other Alley ¨C they tended to come forward and offer the unlucky soul a dumpling which was really a brewed knuckle or something like that. It was very unsafe to eat almost anything in Knockturn Alley unless you¡¯d brought your own food.

Jim was scared out of his wits, I could feel that much. His fear was making my head ache a little, so I hissed, ¡°Hey, cut off the broadcast, will you?¡±

He stopped, but my head still throbbed. I was feeling a little woozy. I wondered what I had eaten that was making me feel like this. It definitely wasn¡¯t the right time for me to get sick. All the better that no one was hassling us today, there was no telling how Jim could¡¯ve reacted. But even that was strange. The street seemed empty. Before there would be at least a small cluster of people huddled and whispering in a corner in high, unnatural voices, or a tall figure roaming around aimlessly or a couple of ghosts making noises in the gutter. Now all we were seeing in the dark was a black cat on a shop window sill, staring at us through slit yellow eyes. There wasn¡¯t anybody else.

Is it always like this? ¡°No,¡± I whispered back. I wished my head ache would go away. Where¡¯s everybody, then? ¡°I¡¯m not sure that you¡¯d want them to appear, Jim. We¡¯d better explore before they all come back. Are you scared?¡± I¡¯m scared plenty, he admitted.

And so we walked. One foot after another in the snow, which instead of making the alley look Christmasy and cute like Diagon Alley it made the place look even more darker and sinister. Snow fell from the sky ¨C I caught some on my tongue. I spat it out in a spray of spit. ¡°Yuck,¡± I gasped, and spat some more. ¡°I forgot that the most terrible snow falls here.¡± Yeah, well, Jim said dryly, I kinda figured that out the moment we stepped in the place. Even through his sarcasm, he still hadn¡¯t let go of my hand from the moment I had taken it to take him through the brick wall.

We must have gone through five minutes walking down that long winding street, and still no one came into sight. Jim seemed braver by then, but my head was giving me hell. It seemed to be getting worse as we went deeper into the Alley, for some reason. It was that reason that made me decide to return to Diagon Alley. I turned to look at Jim.

¡°There¡¯s a passage up ahead that leads into the back of Flourish and Blotts. We¡¯re getting out soon.¡± Okay! Okay. That¡¯s good. He was even smiling.

Then¡­the smile faded. He stopped in his tracks and his mouth feel open a bit. At that same moment my head gave a large inner bump! I cried out and clapped a hand to my forehead ¨C it felt like it was sizzling. Everything in front of me burned bright white, then went to pitch black. I could hear people, a lot of them. They sounded nearby. Above the pounding of my head, they were talking in a low buzz, and they seemed to be getting closer. Jim¡¯s thoughts broke into my pain ¨C ¨C Kora! Kora, get up, there¡¯s a huge crowd, they¡¯re going to trample over us if we don¡¯t move now! Come on! An arm grabbed mine, and then I was up and moving across the snow. I bumped into a hard wall and that was when we stopped moving, and Jim was hissing at me to shush and stop talking. What the? I wasn¡¯t talking¡­Jim was imagining it¡­what was happening? My head¡­

I decided to try and open my eyes. They were open, I could feel the freeze of the air getting at them. Was I delirious? What was it exactly that had poisoned me like this? Then bits and pieces of images came through to me, in a slow but busy pace. I saw tattered robes, purple and black and dark blue, pass us by wherever we were. We must have been pretty close to them ¨C I could hear what they were saying¡­something about the Messiah¡­a revolution¡­an attack? A tack? Anarchy¡­what anarchy¡­who¡­

Then the world opened up. Light, although the dim illumination of Knockturn Alley, flooded my sight once again, and I was looking up into the dark faceless hood of one of the men in the crowd. My head crashed, and I screamed. Whether it was for real or I had imagined that scream I had no idea. He only looked at me for a split second ¨C he was the only one I could see, everything else was blurry, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell¨C then he had turned away, had lost interest in the little girl slumped against the dark corner of the street behind the cracked, wooden crates.

The crowd passed after what seemed like days. All that time Jim kept me upright in my wet, snowy seat, asking me in rapid-fire thought what was wrong. Long after the crowd had disappeared I was able to gain control of myself again. My head ache was still there but at least it wasn¡¯t threatening to kill me. Jim looked so worried, it was funny. I would¡¯ve laughed if it had all been some kind of sick joke, and I would¡¯ve cried if it weren¡¯t for the fact that I had never cried before in my whole life. Something was wrong in Knockturn Alley.

Pop got his wish. He had the chance to meet Jim, but only because Jim had insisted that he stayed with me for the rest of the day. Therefore he took me home and practically forced me to have a rest, and sat by my bedside the whole time. He was still sitting there when Pop suddenly came through the door at five p.m. all bustling and rowdy in the aftermath of coming home for the day. I didn¡¯t think Jim might have noticed, but the instant Pop caught sight of Jim his arm did a slight jerk, and I knew that he had nearly acted to draw his wand out and point it at my friend before realizing who it might be. Pop did a huge smile and said, ¡°Well, hello! You must be Jim. Erm, pardon me, my boy, I must ask Kora, what are you doing in bed so early?¡± Jim looked at me. We hadn¡¯t really talked about the visit to Knockturn Alley and whether to admit to Pop or not, but I figured that I had it covered. Getting up on my elbows, I said sincerely, ¡°We were playing around on the brooms, Pop, and I¡¯ve hurt my back a bit. Should teach me not to try professional sloth grips without consulting the experts first, huh?¡± Pop just shook his head and invited Jim to stay for dinner.

At the table Jim watched, slightly gaping, as Pop went about the kitchen throwing pans and food on the stove. He¡¯s so normal. ¡°Ahem.¡± I mean, no offense, but¡­my Gran doesn¡¯t think much of him. She says¡­never mind what she says. I never believed her anyway. I nodded ¨C that sounded better. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m lucky to have him.¡±

Jim ended up telling Pop how he was able to talk to me. Pop¡¯s eyes went wide, and said that he had never known. ¡°Fancy that! Well you¡¯re a little fighter, aren¡¯t you? I suppose it comes in handy when you¡¯re in detention, doesn¡¯t it? You¡¯d still be able to communicate with each other, one through thought-speak and the other through facial expressions and body language.¡± ¡°Yes, Pop,¡± I said, catching Jim¡¯s cautious glance. I hadn¡¯t mentioned to him that I had told Pop about the detentions.

After dinner Pop left us. He said he was going out to have a puff of Moreton¡¯s Medial Cigars, but I knew that really he wanted to be alone to think. Nobody could stand the smell of those cigars so he was ensured privacy for a while. I let him go without a fuss, and led Jim up onto the roof. There we lay, looking up at the sky. It wasn¡¯t full moon, but it was getting close. The stars were definitely brighter, almost like Jim¡¯s eyes.

You must be so happy here. ¡°Yeah. You understand how I didn¡¯t want to go to Hogwarts at the beginning of this year. Even though I¡¯ve only got Pop, I still feel as if everything in my whole entire life is here and I never want to leave them behind. Do you feel the same about your home?¡± Jim¡¯s thoughts were ruffled. He mumbled, Yeah, I guess. He didn¡¯t seem comfortable with heartwarming talks such as this, so I changed the subject. ¡°What do you think?¡± About what? ¡°Pop.¡± Oh, he¡¯s wonderful. ¡°Yeah, he is, actually. Pity we couldn¡¯t meet your Gran. From what you said about her, she¡¯d probably spray us with pesticide or something if we showed up on her porch.¡± Actually, more like repellent for Blast-Ended Skrewts. We have an endless supply of those. The back yard¡¯s full of the ugly worms. ¡°Sounds interesting. You¡¯ve got Blast-Ended Skrewts in your back yard, as well as a pond with a Grindylow. All we¡¯ve got is an Asphodel garden, and that¡¯s not even remotely interesting.¡± Don¡¯t worry, you and your Pop are interesting enough by yourselves. ¡°Thanks.¡± Jim got up into a sitting position and looked at the long thin trail of smoke curling up in front of us from the dark front yard. He¡¯s happy enough when he¡¯s with us, but he seems stressed now. ¡°Yeah¡­that¡¯s just how he is.¡± How did he take the news the first time you told him? About Snape and what he did and the two detentions he¡¯d gotten us into? ¡°Well, he was surprised. He said we should¡¯ve told him sooner. But other than that he was okay with it. He only told me to behave myself, which is very unlikely.¡± Actually, Snape took it pretty easy on us. Dusting a hall and polishing up a whole trophy room? Gran¡¯s made me done worse. ¡°You see? He¡¯s not that bad.¡± He probably knew you had a crush on him and decided to favour us. ¡°It¡¯s not that obvious, is it?¡± An image popped into my head. It was of me in the Potions classroom. While Jim was nearly falling asleep in his seat, I was busy sketching a drawing of Snape on my spare parchment. ¡°You had no right to spy on my business like that.¡± I couldn¡¯t help it. I won¡¯t do it in the future if it bothers you. ¡°I was kidding, Jim.¡± We sat in silence, watching the smoke below us thicken and swirl in the cold night air. I found myself thinking about the return to school, and dreaded it. No way! I wanted to stay here. There was nothing better than sitting on your roof at night or talking with friends or having fun with your family. Still, at least Jim was enough.

_We sat up there till the smoke thinned, and blew out._


	20. The Ministry of Magic

Chapter Twenty: The Ministry of Magic

¡°So, that¡¯s where babies come from, Kora.¡± ¡°No, Pop, don¡¯t joke around. What¡¯s happening with Azkaban?¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine, Kora. We¡¯ve reinforced the guards, Fudge has been docked his Christmas holiday in order for him to keep working on the problem, and there has been no further attacks. Nothing to worry about.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bet it wasn¡¯t that easy to push aside when you sent me that note warning me to be careful. You were worried Richard¡¯s going to come and take me.¡± ¡°Yes, Kora. I feared that it was going to happen.¡±

A few knocks sounded on the front door. I finished pouring Pop¡¯s coffee and went over to let Jim in. The first thing he did was hand me a long, russet-red feather. Uh, Torque kinda dropped this when she was trying to tear my head open. ¡°Nonsense, Jim, an owl was heading for Number 26 and Torque just got agitated. Come on in.¡± In the kitchen I told him, ¡°Pop¡¯s taking me to the Ministry with him today.¡± What? The Ministry? ¡°Yeah. He¡¯s going to show me around and stuff. D¡¯you want to come?¡± Okay. 

Well, that was easy. I had thought that Jim was going to freak out. The Ministry of Magic was a big place and high in status. Visiting it would be an honour. I had never gone inside myself, but I had heard stories from Pop.

He was watching the clock in the kitchen. The minute it struck nine thirty he got up, his long velvet robes swirling behind him impressively, and strode into the living room. He took a small silver box off the mantelpiece of the fireplace and opened it. He offered it to Jim and me. ¡°Right. Now, make sure you guys say ¡°Ministry of Magic¡¯ really clearly, okay? And make sure you say it in a completely British accent otherwise you might end up in the Muggle African Republic. Kora, you go first.¡± I took some Floo powder from the box and threw it into the burning fireplace. Immediately the flames burst into emerald green, and it tickled as I climbed into them. ¡°Ministry of Magic!¡±

Pop and Jim¡¯s faces swam out of sight ¨C I was off and away down the fireplace. Flashes of rooms zipped by my eyes, it was too fast to see the pattern of this or the size of that or whether the rooms I was seeing were Muggle or wizardkind. The ride didn¡¯t take too long. In no time I was falling out onto a clean, nicely tiled floor, and a wizard by the fireplace was saying in an automatic voice, ¡°Welcome to the Ministry of Magic.¡± Well, he was saying it till he recognized me, then his voice stopped at just ¡®Ministry¡¯. As a guard he would have seen Pop around all the time, and he would¡¯ve smiled and said hello how are you and meant every word of it. But now, there was an exception. No matter who my grandfather was, I was still vermin. He was glaring at me now, this man whose name badge read ¡®Tom Achilles¡¯.

¡°Good day, Ms Rastrick.¡± He sounded cold. He reached into his desk and handed me a pin. It already had my name on it. I said nothing, but pinned it to the front of my jumper. A few seconds later Jim appeared, dusting himself off. Tom Achilles was about to comment ¨C probably to ask us what we were doing in the Ministry ¨C when Pop himself popped into the scene. He gave Tom Achilles a great grin and nodded. ¡°Morning, Tom. A badge for young Jim Rickman here, if you please.¡± ¡°Good morning, Verdi, of course, here it is.¡± Jim stuck it to his jumper, thinking to me, Not a very pleasant man, is he? I had to laugh.

Pop moved to the front. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll be showing you guys around for a while, then I¡¯m going downstairs to the Mysteries dep. So bear with me for now, okay?¡±

The Ministry lobby was huge. It was bigger than the Great Hall by maybe a league or two, or maybe even five. All around the room there were fireplaces, and every minute there was somebody appearing or leaving through them. Guards like our Tom Achilles sat at these fireplaces. In the middle of the large hall was a huge fountain. It looked like it was made from squeaky clean gold. The statues that made it up depicted a house elf, a goblin, a witch and a wizard. All of them were spouting water, so the hall seemed to be filled with the rush of a waterfall. Jim thought it was wrong. House elves do look up to humans, being slaves, but goblins detest humans. That¡¯s not right, for that goblin to look so happy about this witch and wizard. ¡°Yes. Jim.¡±

Pop brought us into the lift, and the whole time we were in there paper planes were flapping around our heads. Pop swiped one out of the air and opened it. ¡°Hmph. I would have thought. Charles Downer needs me to draft a new legislation for his cousin Alexander. That Squib really should get going on his own work instead of relying on his cousin so much to rely on me.¡± Pop handed me the plane, and Jim and I spent the rest of our time playing catching games with it in the lift.

Ping! We had stopped at the Department of Magical Sports. Pop checked his leaflet. ¡°What?¡± he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right, they¡¯re moving around the departments this year. Magical Maladies is on the sixth floor now¡­¡± He took us out anyway. Here, everything was about Quidditch. I saw a few posters on the older games, but the modern wizarding sport was what dominated the floor. Pop pointed out a big man with a large paunch laughing with some others and said, ¡°That¡¯s Ludovic Bagman the Head of this department.¡± He used to be in the Wimbleton Wasps! ¡°I think so. That just might be it.¡± Next he showed us Bartemius Crouch, who happened to be on the next floor below us. Then there was the Head of the Department of Magical Creatures, Muggle Practices and Legislation Control, the Part-Human Act, and Improper Use of Magic. In every one we saw the witches and wizards running around like crazy, trailing scrolls of parchment, envelopes, wands, and even flames and burnt paper in their wake. Some places were large and had tons of people working in that department. Others were just barely there, with only five people working on it or less. Pop introduced us to Arthur Weasley, and I pointed out that his son was in his seventh year at Hogwarts. Arthur became red-eared at this, and said something about Charlie Weasley being the second in the family to go into the school.

Everywhere Pop went he always had to be stopped by someone, whether it was to have an hour-long conversation or just to pass on a few notes to this and that in department whatever. At these intervals Jim would wander over to a pedestal or a statue and pose or do something stupid. Hey, look at me. I¡¯m Edward Munch. ¡°That¡¯s not Edward Munch, that¡¯s just the portrait he¡¯s drawn. Of himself. Whatever.¡± I wasn¡¯t at all that good at Muggle things ¨C we had been outside the Muggle department that time.

At some points we would see people we knew, like Professor McGonagall. Jim saw her first, and pointed her out talking to Bartemius Crouch from the fourth floor. What would she be doing here? ¡°I have no idea. Maybe she¡¯s always been here. You know that time she was away when Snape caught us outside the dorm. If we had gotten her I¡¯ll bet we would¡¯ve gotten a better detention.¡± Nah. She would¡¯ve made us clean up all the bathrooms in the school. She¡¯s done it to Peter Gobb in sixth year. 

We also saw Frances¡¯ dad. He was busy working away at someone else¡¯s desk ¨C Pop had beckoned for us to be quiet and had opened the door. We watched him for a while ¨C the man was practically writing away, even muttering solemnly as he did so. If you ask me, he seemed kind of mad. Outside, Pop told us, ¡°He¡¯s taken someone¡¯s place in the Department of Magical Exports for today, and it¡¯s costing him death. He isn¡¯t used to writing stuff like this, in Mysteries he just tests things to find out if they work and practical things like that. I take care of the paperwork, and Bode does a bit of both.¡± ¡°Are you sure that isn¡¯t too much information about your work, Pop?¡± ¡°So far I haven¡¯t mentioned anything about what we actually do. I¡¯m allowed to say how we do it, aren¡¯t I?¡±

There were more departments, but Pop had only a few minutes to spare. ¡°Sorry I can¡¯t take you guys to see my office. Maybe next time we¡¯ll bring the Imperceptible Cloak or something, okay? To get out of here just use Floo powder, go via the fireplace opposite the one we came here in.¡± He kissed my forehead and ruffled Jim¡¯s jet black hair. ¡°Bye! Travel safe!¡±

I turned to Jim, unsatisfied. ¡°I would¡¯ve gotten a bigger kick out of that if we had spent more time exploring.¡± You¡¯re not saying we¡­? ¡°Great idea, Jim. Let¡¯s go.¡± And before he could protest I speed-walked into the next lift I saw. Jim had no choice but to jump right in after me. You¡¯re crazy, you know that? ¡°Yup.¡± Kids don¡¯t just walk around the Ministry of Magic, it¡¯s crazy. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t use the word ¡®crazy¡¯ two times in a row,¡± I said for the sake of it, just as the lift stopped at the education dep. The lift doors opened, and I was overwhelmed by the man who stepped inside.

He was tall, naturally, as we were kids and we were short. He was dressed all in black, but not black like ¡®Snape¡¯ black. That was the first thing I noticed about him. The second thing was his hair. It was long ¨C it stretched right down his back. It was the brightest white, almost silver in appearance. The third thing I noticed was the staff he held in his hand. It was like a cane, but the top part was the bronzed head of a hissing snake. It looked very intimidating. The fourth thing I noticed was the expression on his face. It was stern and hard, and had a tint of boredom. The face itself was perfectly lined with his jaw, making him look powerful, and his posture was straight and formal. He reminded me so much of my Potions teacher¡­maybe even better.

He must have seen me looking at him from the corner of his eye because he turned his head and looked down at me. His eyes ¨C a glare of silvery-gray that acknowledged even the tiny girl beside him ¨C grew in their own curiosity of me. He was beautiful.

¡°Well, well, well¡­¡±

His voice came out smooth for such a stern, hard face. He looked at Jim, then back at me.

¡°Children,¡± he said lightly, ¡°in the Ministry. I¡¯d thought that you two were goblins, given your heights. Alone? Surely not. Fudge isn¡¯t that much of an imbecile to have organized this sort of felony, I hope.¡± Whoever this guy was, he wasn¡¯t afraid to reveal his opinions. I felt my breath caught in myself ¨C who was he?

¡°Who are you here with?¡± Seriously, Kora, don¡¯t answer him, he doesn¡¯t look all that safe. He reminds me of Snape somehow. 

I didn¡¯t turn away, I just kept looking up at this¡­this angel, this wonderful silvery-gray-eyed man who was talking to me, not taking his eyes away from my own like he wanted the answer as someone who was taking notice of me for once.

¡°V-Verdi Rastrick,¡± I managed to squeeze out, and looking back up at the lift doors he gave the tiniest shadow of a smile. ¡°Good old Verdi. Man seems busy these days, never has time to grab a decent chat or even a coffee with old friends.¡± God, he¡¯s handsome! ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯d know what he¡¯s up to in his department?¡± Don¡¯t tell him anything. Fat chance, like I knew anything that went on in there. ¡°S-sorry, no. It¡¯s all secret, still.¡± ¡°Yes¡­¡± He nodded, and I stood there wordlessly, mentally dropping all my faith for Snape and giving it all to this man. Geez, I didn¡¯t even know who he was! And yet¡­

The lift stopped on the defence force floor. Without looking back, he said, ¡°We¡¯ll meet again someday rather.¡± And looking over his shoulder, he added, ¡°Patience is a virtue.¡± The lift doors closed, and I heaved a great sigh. ¡°Jim! Did you see him? Oh, Jim, he was gorgeous.¡± Yeah, I saw him alright. Honestly, Kora, the people you fall in love with. You realize that you¡¯ve got a better chance with Snape since you see him every school week? You probably won¡¯t ever see this guy ever again. Right, can¡¯t believe I¡¯m encouraging you to like Snape. 

By the end of the day I was over the man I had fallen for. I still asked Pop about him when he came home from work that evening. He pretended to think for a while. ¡°Long silver hair, black clothing, staff with a snake on it¡­well, if it isn¡¯t Lucius Malfoy. He¡¯s one of Hogwarts¡¯ school governors.¡± ¡°Oh, Pop, he¡¯s the most beautiful person I¡¯ve ever seen¡­except for you, of course.¡± He laughed, and tucked my blanket in around me.

¡°You won¡¯t remember, but he came over once when you were a tiny baby. He came over for coffee, I believe. And to expect that from a man who frowns upon Muggle practices¡­¡± ¡°He doesn¡¯t like Muggles?¡± ¡°Sweetheart, the man used to be one of He Who Marvels Nigh Bottom Nearby¡¯s supporters.¡± That struck me hard, but I still said, ¡°Wow¡­just like Snape.¡± ¡°Yeah, baby. Just like Snape. Now get to sleep, make sure you dream about Lucius tonight. Lord knows you need something to occupy yourself with. I have to agree that he is a bit of a hottie.¡± I slugged him hard from under the covers.

I didn¡¯t mean to ask the next few questions. They weren¡¯t the best questions I could ever ask, but I asked them anyway. I had to know some things.

¡°Pop, how come Richard never went with Voldemort and them?¡±

¡°Gee, Kora, um...¡± Pop looked off into the darkness outside my window and stared for a bit. When he answered me, his tone was quieter, as if someone was outside straining to hear everything he was going to say.

¡°I don¡¯t know. I haven¡¯t exactly stayed in touch with him, as you know. From the years I have spent with him, he never really seemed like an anti-Muggle person whereas all of Voldemort¡¯s supporters hated Muggles and wanted to dispose all Muggle-borns in wizarding families. Which is a bit rich, as Voldemort himself was a half-blood.¡± ¡°Really? How did you know that?¡± ¡°Oh, just a minor case of schoolhood. I was in my first year and he was in his sixth. It pays to know who some of your school prefects were.¡±

I had never known that Pop had gone to school with the creep. But then Richard was an even bigger creep, so anything was possible.

¡°Well...so Lucius hated Muggles as well?¡± ¡°Mmm, maybe. I wouldn¡¯t put it against him. He said that he didn¡¯t, that he was just playing to get into Voldemort¡¯s good books or something like that. Either he¡¯s lying or he really was under the Imperius Curse like he claimed he was.¡± He slugged me back, and said in an accusing sort of voice, ¡°I still don¡¯t want to believe that you find the man attractive.¡± That started a tickling bout, and by the end of it we were both beaten and pretty exhausted. I patted my quilt and Pop climbed in with me. He propped himself against the headrest of my bed and held me in a grandfatherly way. He sighed into my hair.

¡°Only two more weeks left before you go back.¡±

I didn¡¯t say anything to that. Two weeks sounded such a short time, I didn¡¯t know how we were going to go through with it. I was glad that I didn¡¯t say anything, because all of a sudden Pop¡¯s body began to shake, and I realized straight away that he was crying. It really shook me ¨C I had always known Pop to be a strong happy person. The fact that he was now quietly sobbing very close to me was impossible to believe. Yet¡­I didn¡¯t know what to do, so I did the next best thing. I twisted myself around and reversed the action ¨C now I was the one holding Pop like he was fragile and needed to be taken care of. If the people from the Ministry had seen him like this¡­at least they would¡¯ve known to give him more days off.

I wasn¡¯t surprised that I didn¡¯t cry along with him. After all, crying had never really been my thing. I felt a little guilty, like I should have done so or something, but it wasn¡¯t something that you could just do at will. I wasn¡¯t a famous Muggle actor to do that kind of thing on set.

Pop ended up falling asleep beside me. I had fallen asleep first, and had woken up in the morning in great risk of being rolled off the bed.


End file.
